


Laws of Inertia

by palettesofrenaissance



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Time Traveler's Wife Fusion, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst and Feels, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, I don't think this AU has ever been done before, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Canon, Realistic outcomes, The only character death is Rose's like in the show, This is chalked full of headcanons about past and post canon sprinkled throughout, Time Skips, do you like angst? because if you do this has it, involving transformations and some events and decisions, this is a story where Rose gets to see Steven grow up...but there is a twist, time is never fair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24709969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palettesofrenaissance/pseuds/palettesofrenaissance
Summary: On the day Rose Quartz dies, she wakes up following what should have been the birth of her son and finds herself standing in front of a boy in a red shirt inside her Pink Room at the temple. She sees this boy many times—sometimes older, sometimes young—observing him throughout different stages of his life.Rose finds out that she can involuntarily time travel to random points in her “afterlife.” She desperately tries to build a relationship with her son, Steven, but the problems and complexities of a relationship are multiplied by her inability to remain in one time and place.»⠀What if things that came from the past were already influenced by the future?⠀«[ ALTERNATIVE SUMMARY - Throughout all of his life, Steven assumes that the glimpses of Rose in the woods or Pink Diamond carting a hand through his hair were all conjured from dreams or figments of his imagination. That is, until he's twenty-eight and receives a letter addressed to him describing his fourth birthday. The letter is signed with a scrawled picture of a rose and a diamond and is a written observation that would have been impossible to ever happen. ]𝐑𝐄-𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟓
Relationships: Rose Quartz & Steven Universe, Rose Quartz | Pink Diamond & Steven Universe
Comments: 52
Kudos: 127





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I have had this story idea in mind for a while, in fact since finishing SUF, but had been putting it off for some time. I am finally getting it done! I find Rose to be such an interesting character and I thought she would be the best fit for this. And I love using metaphors with this fandom hence the title, it's fun_
> 
> _There doesn't seem to be other stories where Rose is the one who time travels so it will be interesting to see how this story will be taken. I hope it is liked. I hope you all like this._

The topic, hope, and possibility of an afterlife is discussed across religions. There are multiple, hundreds of them and their envisioned beliefs practiced across the population of the human species.

But Gems do not have such religions or beliefs. In fact, they consider them quite purposeless.

What use is a religion when there has never been the hope or suspicion of an afterlife to begin with? When everything is incessant and infinite?

The answer: Gems were never meant to die.

* * *

The species of organisms, Gems, don't have an afterlife. That much is known; this has always been known. A single Gem can live for hundreds or thousands of human-years, never aging, scarcely decaying. Until they are shattered. Or erode.

Because of this, life and death are finite—there are no "if's," "what-if's," or "maybe's." Their existence is made up of a simple emergence, creation for a purpose, and an eventual end.

There has only been one anomaly, one singular Gem who caught a glimpse of an afterlife within her dying breath.

She saw "heaven" in the distorted, transformed face of her fusion progeny. It has never been recorded, however, singling her out even more, this discovery dying with her.

* * *

A single Rose Quartz—who goes by the same name—goes through the pain and miracle of a very evocative, too human experience as the bright summer sun pushes away a heavy overcast from a midmorning rain shower over Beach City, Delmarva.

She had been adamant on the Earth trade of a home delivery. She even requested a friend, Vidalia, to serve as her midwife—and when the Earth woman was granted the honor, she spent the next several months learning all she could. And Vidalia invited the help of an old college buddy, Barbara Miller, to provide help for the large woman. However, currently, neither women are present, as they are en route to Rose’s location.

Negligence over alerting them late into her labor, but for some things Rose doesn’t calculate ahead of time, instead diving headfirst.

She’s currently in a room that is both filled with chaotic emotion and anxiety while being almost alarmingly calm. Rose continues to struggle to breath, readjusts the pillow between her right arm and head, lying on her side.

Pearl hovers in the doorway, clutching her biceps and standing uselessly, watching Greg press a bag of ice onto Rose’s forehead, still babbling about how he knows that Gems don’t sweat but not knowing what else to do for this unorthodox situation and her narrowly unconventional reactions. Beads, streams of water fall from the bag’s surface, drenching Rose's bangs and the bed sheet they fall to, the entire bag melting in twenty minutes.

Suddenly, Rose grips the sheets in a pained vice again. Greg rushes to her legs, lifts the one on top—her left—into the air to help alleviate her pain. His cellphone rings from the pocket of his denim shorts; it’s Barbara asking if Rose is dilating, if she’s ready to push. Greg doesn’t know how to respond. Rose’s short, sharp cry is heard over the receiver and Barbara whoops, reading it as an answer.

Pearl rushes to her side. Rose gives a forced smile, reassuring that this is natural side effect of a human birth. When Pearl questions, Rose once again assures that this is still something she desperately wants to go through with. Her words are punctuated with another wail, her facial expression scrunching and her limbs trembling in pain.

Greg hikes her leg to rest on his shoulder. He is easily the most worried in the room.

Rose has done the research: After spending years learning about human biology, taking classes from preschool grade to advantaged college courses, and after coming to the frustrated realization that her alien biology is vastly different than that of her partner's or the female Earthing species, Rose discovers that she doesn't really have a biology, by Earth's standards.

Instead, she uses that to her advantage.

She always uses things to her advantage. She's an optimist that way—that is why Greg fell in love with her.

It takes months of intense studying, a few Earth years to make her decision, then a little longer to come to terms that this is her pseudo-suicide note, and then over nine months for gestation.

“A perfect fusion,” she cooed months ago, placing her partner’s—her life-lover’s—hand on her enlarged stomach. "Genetically human and, with hope, a Gem too."

Even though she smiled back then, there was something melancholic in her eyes that filled Pearl with dread; that drove Garnet from the room as she saw negative future possibilities; that Greg smiled back to, actively trying to pull a mental curtain over and revel in ignorant bliss.

But ignorance only prevails for so long, and when the inevitable was no longer able to be neglected, Rose finds herself lying across this king-sized bed of a rented bedroom with labored breathes and in the most excruciating pain she's ever felt in her hundreds of years of life.

She heaves a breath and turns to lie on her back, shoulders resting against the wide, basic-designed, wooden headboard. There’s a small TV, turned off, decorated with dust across its top, on a dingy dresser across the room. An ugly, black telephone sits on a little table by the bed, the paint beginning to wear and chip off on its handle and the number ‘6’ and ‘8’ already rubbed away from overuse. The heavy, beaten door of a room next-door closes with a jarring slam that gently rattles the glass mirror in the bathroom. As Garnet leaves, she unintentionally dents the metal knob in her hand.

Rose has been in labor for hours. Greg is by her side, as are the remaining Crystal Gems.

In the past months, Rose had been going through strange changes, including bouts of strong fatigue. She's uncharacteristically weary, out of breath, and exhausted.

Her naval-gem has been glowing bright since her labor began; Greg had been clutching her hand from the start, just short of crying a river.

He's a fretful, apprehensive mess—she chuckles at this through the pain of both birth and holding her shape-shifted for this long and for creation.

"Keep it up and you will lose all your hair just like you always say," Rose sighs, her eyes closing and her gem shining brighter.

Greg doesn't find amusement in the moment, not cracking the slightest of smiles.

The summer heat feels several degrees hotter inside, as if it is seeping into the room. It isn’t registered that it is in fact from her “quartz” gem.

Pearl has left the room to speak with Garnet, once more venting about Rose’s plan for creation not sitting right with her. Amethyst has gone to scavenge for a particular spicy cheese-flavored potato chips because Rose convinced her that the personal quest shouldn’t be ignored and that she will be fine.

Her breathing not improving and feeling her end approaching, Rose reciprocates Greg's tight grip for the first time that day and lets her head fall towards him. "This is my end," she speaks softly.

She’s scared, she admits then—excited more than afraid, but still afraid nonetheless. What would her child look like, she wonders. What would he or she act like? How much of her would the child inherit? Would the child be a good person?

Would he or she be a better person than Rose ever was?

With a tear in her eye, Rose wishes she could have a glimpse of her child—just once, at the very least. Curiosity and grief ignite in her like gasoline-soaked tissue paper.

With every fiber of her being she wishes to have just one glance, to know her tribulations were successful. To know that everything was not in vain, that this self-sacrifice was worth it.

She worries about it so much; she knows how perilous and fragile humans are. Does Greg and the others live long enough to raise the child? Or does the child die prematurely? Will he or she be able to grow and develop and mature, or will this fusion that Rose has grown to care so much for grow up alone? Will her miracle be successful or will he or she develop into a corruption and need to be bubbled or shattered?

Rose’s grip around Greg’s hand tightens as he begins to cry, as a tear rolls down her cheek. As her gem illuminates the small room in a deep pink glow, raising the temperature with it.

As her gem glows brighter still, Rose's grasp starts to weaken. She looks more tired than she's ever been, like she could melt into a puddle on the bed. Like it is visible how _little_ of her life-force she has left.

Greg can’t see clearly through his tears.

Pearl and Garnet return to catch the beginning of his crying and bringing the back of Rose’s hand to his cheek.

Amethyst barges into the room but is immediately ushered out by Garnet, informing that, "Rose requests privacy." Pearl stands awkwardly far from the foot of the bed, near the front door. Greg openly cries now, loudly and ugly.

On the late afternoon of August 15th, as Vidalia and Barbara pull up to the building and run to the lobby, it all ends. In one minute, Rose Quartz is lying across a king-sized bed with debilitated grace and a stomach as big as a moon, and in the next, there is a searing, blinding blast of bright-pink light and heat. When it finally settles, in her place lies a shriveled, sniveling human infant.

No one truly moved on from that startling day.

* * *

Minutes after a gem is shattered, their essence fades from existence if the pieces are not tended to.

However, no one knows what happens when a Gem binds with an alien organism and transforms into a completely new being, a new fusion.

Following her implosion, Rose finds herself in a familiar setting: the void of spacetime where all Gems go when "poofed." The setting reminds her of floating in air or like sitting on the seafloor, without the breeze or current—peaceful and serene and silent and secluded.

She notices that she doesn’t feel the rejuvenation or repair like normally. The fatigue and lethargy remain but are fading but her mind is still as alert as ever.

She has only ever occupied this pocket void three times in her existence: once as a warning, twice as a promise that her throne can be taken as easily and simply as White wished, and thrice when Pearl shape-shifted into a Rose Quartz to perform her fake assassination.

But during this visit into the void, Rose isn't a Quartz Gem; she's in her pure and true Diamond form instead.

Around her, time passes by in streaks and smudges of colors and emotions—no faces, no clear forms, nothing that can be perceived as a solid, complete imagery by the eye.

She continues to fall through the void of space and she’s still focused on the rented room back there. She thinks about the Crystal Gems, about the mortal friends she’s made, about Greg, about her baby. A wave of emotion surges in her chest, feeling her like a balloon stretched too-thin and ready to burst.

She thinks about her baby and its awaiting fate. She thinks about its life—what kind would it have? She worries about her own mistakes made and now left behind, hoping all those ties have been cut and charred to unrepair and no contact. She worries if the child will indeed have enough love and support. She regrets not being able to ever have been there for support or witnessing the miraculous development of life.

Then, suddenly, her body feels as if it is separating, breaking into a million pieces, like she's being drained of all her energy and she grows dizzy.

Then, suddenly, there is a flash and Rose—no, _Pink Diamond_ finds herself back in the human world.

* * *

For all things, in order for them to move forward, an outside force is needed. They will remain at rest or continue on the straight path unless compelled to change by an outside force.

The key point here is that if there is no outside force to provide the _push_ , then the object will maintain at constant speed, going on for eternity in the same state, never improving, never evolving.

For years, Pink Diamond lived in a constant state of fear, regret, and self-hatred. She assumed she evolved, changed for the better once traveling to Earth and renaming herself _Rose Quartz_ And then she presumed everything would improve if she would eradicate her existence altogether.

But just changing one's form does not ever bring the desired refinements.

In order for her to truly move on, Rose is going to have to improve beyond solely changing her physical body.

* * *

Rose is abruptly ejected from the void; her landing is graceless due to imbalance and physical exertion.

It’s dark out in the world, the light of the moon a balefire against the twinkling windowpane of stars spread across the ink-black sky. The humidity sticks to her skin, expanding her curls. As she stands, she recoils her foot, nearly stepping on a flower. She’s still in her Diamond form; her hair gets tangled in tree branches. A breeze blows and she gets dirt caught in her eyes.

Dazed and confused, she swats a spider’s web from near her eye and takes in her surroundings—and assuming she is still on Earth—realizes that she is in a forest. Needing support, she steadies herself against the nearest tree and grimaces, wanting to find her way back to her beach-side home. When she finally gains her bearings and her head stops spinning, she begins walking.

It isn’t certain how far or how long she walks for, but eventually her wondering brings her to a clearing littered with uprooted trees, boulders, and halved tree trunks.

She stands, a mix of anger and suspicion over the fault of the damage, waiting out the rest of the wooziness on her feet. In the moonlight, a lizard scurries past her hand across the bark of a tree. Rainwater residue glistens on a nearby bush, its flower buds sleeping. Somewhere nearby, a night bird chirps. Somewhere even closer, someone yelps out in pain, one she pinpoints as young and human.

Easing closer, she strains her ears and picks up a gruff female voice with words scolding but indistinguishable.

She navigates towards the voices with one outstretched hand and another balancing on the trees. Her best hope is that it would be humans who can give her directions; her worst is that it would be other Gems.

The moon is eclipsed by clouds and for several moments, the world plunged into darkness.

Stopping when she runs out of trees to balance on, she waits with her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and with clenched fists until the faint shadows returns and the moon blesses the night again.

Beyond the tree line is a cave. Far from its mouth and between the distance of m it and the forest is a human, curled on the ground. It’s shivering, she sees, lying beside a pile of halved logs, crudely tied and clearly made with inexperience and haste.

Lifting her hands, she sees familiar pink gloves and transforms until she feels the cascade of curls down her back and her bare feet are covered by a soft, off-white, ruffled dress. She doesn’t want to frighten the humans with a form that is too tall and foreign.

An owl hoots somewhere overhead. Crickets and cicadas fill the night with choruses of their songs.

As Rose Quartz, the pink Gem sets a foot forward, feels the cold dirt beneath her sole, listens carefully, picks up steadily breathing that reminds her of Greg sleeping, and steps out further into the clearing.

The glowing embers of a dead fire does a poor job at lightening the human’s features—or what looks like a human, slightly. Mostly.

Rose calls out a greeting, keeping her distance. It stirs the human awake.

When its eyes blink open, Rose raises a hand—without a wave, without a welcome because she falls short of one. Before she can ask for directions, the human is staring back at her with eyes that Rose thinks imitate an owl. Then the human sits upright with a speed that makes Rose dizzy.

She frowns, puzzled and curious. Takes a cautionary step backwards. She watches the human blink once, rub his eyes with his fingertips. Blinks again. Digs his fists into his eye sockets as if he's cleaning a stubborn stain.

Rose takes two steps forward and the human tenses up. She hesitates, takes one more step away from the forest lining.

The human is muttering to himself. The pink letterman jacket still covering half of his face, clinging from serving as his pillow—it holds half of his face in shadows.

As Rose Quartz, the Diamond takes a few more steps before stopping as the human jumps to his feet. The movement causes his jacket to fall, revealing his face that makes her think of a younger Greg and his curly hair that reminds her of her own Quartz form.

The human is beginning to glow a faint pink, Rose sees, and is no less alarmed or puzzled.

The human—male, she sees now—is breathing erratically, eyes wild and apprehensive. He's doubtful about what his eyes show him.

Rose's curiosity only spikes, her frown deepening. But judging by the human’s reaction, she likely isn’t going to get many answers out of him and as she turns and walks back into the forest with a mumbled, “Never mind,” she doesn't hear—doesn't actively _try_ to listen, actually—the human calling after her, for her, him choking on the parental title getting stuck and trapped in his throat.

_“Mom!?”_

More focused on where and why she is here, Rose doesn't hear the steadily quickening footfalls quickening from a hesitating shuffle to a brisk walk, nearing the forest lining after her. Then the patterned footfalls change to a jog.

But what she does notice is, as she subconsciously raises a hand to her stomach, expecting to feel her baby bump and her gemstone, her palm falls on neither.

And now she begins to a panic.

She doesn't get a chance to fully process it all, unfortunately, because then her mind feels like it’s soaring, like being shot from a canon, like the bone-chilling crack of a baseball bat and she’s the ball that is flying at rapid speed over seats of awning fans and over fences and bulletin boards and scoreboards, never to be seen again. And as she’s losing her bearings, she’s lost her footing and she’s again falling, falling, falling through time again, grappling at air as her form twists and reshapes, trying to grasp at stability—to the point where she wonders if this is similar to human "nausea." She clutches her stomach and cries out as a pain—deeper than physical and twice as strong—tears through her, inside.

Her gemstone is gone.

Her baby is gone.

She wraps her arms around herself and _wails_.

Rose tries to focus on the passing of time around her, and, eyes burning as she tries to see through infinity, she realizes that she’s also lost her family to this realm of limbo.

When the world and time settles once more, she’s able to grasp her Quartz form again as she’s surrounded by clouds and white, glowing, glass-winged butterflies. The first person she sees then is a shrunken human holding a sword and with tears in its eyes.

* * *

Back at the forest, the human teenager runs into the trees after Rose Quartz but he never catches her. He runs for some time, shouting her name, until he convinces himself that he must have been hallucinating. It must be from increasing stress, from anxiety, and too many late nights and pulling all-nighters this month.

Steven grabs at his gem and stands in the forest, drowning in the cricket chatter, hooting, cicada songs, and moonlight. He inhales slowly, exhales slower, willing his glow to ebb away—but with little success. This event will add to the growing bags beneath his eyes.

Rose Quartz’s assumed-to-be-imagined presence _does_ motivate him to push himself further during strength training with Jasper for the next several days before ultimately shattering her.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Hello! This is the first time I have written for a different fandom in...three years? (Wow) So I am excited and I hope you are too._
> 
> _This story is planned to be nine chapters, maybe having an epilogue or even a sequel if people like this. I have a couple of chapters already planned and some finished, and I plan to post them every week or so on Saturday. If I am not able to post a chapter because it isn't finished, I will mention it either in the end notes or on my blog._
> 
> _Don't forget to leave a comment! I'll try to respond to any posted. Thank you for reading and I will post chapter two on this coming Saturday!_
> 
> Edit: chapter four is when the ball really starts rolling


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Rose makes another pit-stop, she meets her son again, twice, in unconventional ways while still unknowing that it's him and getting a glimpse of her own Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _so I changed the story from being nine chapters to having ten because I was unsure what to do with this chapter and chapter three about whether to post them combined or individually, and because I did not receive any suggestions on my blog when posting the question there, I will just continue with the original posting plan to keep them separate. no biggie._

The world comes into focus, opening into a brilliant golden yellow sky and earth. Butterflies that reflect like mirrors swarm Rose's vision, boxing her inside its formed cyclone until they disperse like dandelion tufts in a flurry to reveal a flat ground far below Rose.

She's floating, but she's also, strangely, _not_.

Hovering, it's like. Suspending in the air and time in all the ways possible.

But then again, everything lately has been _strange_.

_Is this what being shattered is like? Instead of imploding into a supernova?_

The reflective butterflies speckle the surrounding space and off on the horizon. One flies too close and its glass-like wings snip off strands of her hair.

Rose has to blink many times until colored blurs below gain sharp detail. She throws her head back to toss her ringlet curls from her eyesight.

At first, Rose wants to assume that there had been some sort of error to where she's landed this time, that she is perhaps still in the spacetime void due to the vastness and emptiness here, but feels an invisible sun beating down overhead and sees the swarms of butterflies, of who have remained close, maintaining a steady swarm not too far off from her location.

Quickly glancing around, she wants to assume that she has only appeared on Earth during its _golden hour_ but as she looks around, she finds that can’t be a _complete_ possibility as there are no landmarks in sight. There is nothing at all—no grass, hills, shrubbery, buildings—just the vast goldenrod yellow sky that blends together with the reflecting, leveled ground far off at the horizon point.

The remaining glass-razor-winged butterflies near her are slowly leaving.

As Rose’s vision focuses on the ground _far_ below, the first person she sees is the _only_ person here: a shrunken human far below on the ground; either shrunken or far away, Rose isn't sure. Probably an adolescent, by height, but the face says pubescent. The human is holding a sword with tears rolling down its face.

This time, desiring help where she can get it, Rose tosses a curl that sways in her eye and demands down to the tiny human, “Who are you? What is this location?”

The human—male? Female? She isn’t able to tell, doesn’t think it is possible _to tell;_ concludes it's both—steps backwards, the sword trembling in its hands. Looking past the tears streaming down its face, Rose recognizes her signature sabre and she thinks: _“Thief!”_

Now angered, Rose bares her teeth and roars, “How did you find that? Tell me who are you, human!”

As her lips form the words, her rage extinguishes at the last punctuation made—she realizes that _not a word_ is actually _spoken_. She tries again and comes to the disturbed conclusion that she can’t speak. She's suddenly mute. Her mouth formulates sentences just fine and she blows out enough hot air to match but not a sound escapes.

Rose's anger extinguished, she mirrors the look of fear.

The human fusion-made hermaphrodite trembles before her, its shirt wet with its crying, and an expression of complete, utter remorse and terror that strikes Rose to silence.

For a moment.

Because, in the midst of this as the human is backing away in fear, Rose watches it drop her sword and then loses its footing and _topple backwards_ off an _invisible cliff_ , as if disappearing into the yellow ground. Bewildered, Rose cries out for its safety all too late—

But just in time to catch a glimpse of a gemstone shining on its stomach.

“Wait—!”

The butterflies swarm once more, eclipsing her vision. And as Rose thinks she is being transported back into the void, she thinks she picks up a faint voice—a wisp along the breeze, as quiet as the hush of a butterfly’s wing—the voices of Garnet and Pearl calling a name: Stevonnie.

* * *

The world whites out and she is plunged into a blinding, reflective abyss that is similar to shining a white scoop light onto a full-length trifold mirror set.

Rose calls out for help; this is not identical to her void so she thinks—assumes— _hopes_ that there is a being nearby. Someone she can call for. Something that she can use. Someone who can provide answers.

“Hello! Is anyone here?”

Where she lands is nothing but mirrors: on every side, above and below. She looks down—her hands are not yet covered in pink gloves, signaling she is still in her Quartz form. Her stomach is still flat, indicating she has gone through that experience—what did the humans call it?—a miscarriage. A shallow hole is where her gemstone once was, telling that she is somewhere between life and death, and she panics again.

“Help!” Hands clutch her stomach. Her eyes bounce off every reflection of herself, washed out by the white light. “Anyone!?” She starts to sob. “I think I’m dying...again…” Catching another glimpse of herself in the surrounding mirrors, she whimpers, “I can't go through this...”

Sliding to her knees, she wonders if this is what the humans think of when describing the afterlife.

Or is this Hell, forcing to view herself for all of eternity? To stare into the eyes of a betrayer, a deceiver, a selfish champion, a heritor to a totalitarian empire. A face that isn’t even _hers_ but one she wished to have, oh so desperately. One who she gladly, eagerly accepted as her own. One whom she has attached treason and a list of failings and flaws on to the original owner.

The reflections of herself, including the mirror she sits on, are divided into fifty-eight in total—larger reflections cut off into twos and threes, and then those divided into smaller versions of herself. Every one staring back, accusatory. Every one staring back is at fault of countless lives and mistakes. Every one guilty.

Rose cries out loud.

Even if this wasn’t Hell, it sure feels like it—when she attempts to shape-shift back to her Diamond form, her body sticks, unable to change, unable to make her look away, unable to distract herself from her own thoughts.

Rose screams—

It happens sudden. A flash of bright fuchsia pink light that drowns out the white light and washes out the champagne pink and baby powder white of her ruffled dress.

Rose grips her stomach where her gemstone would have been—a reflexive action done in feelings of apprehension or ambivalence.

“Hello?” She calls out, hoping someone is at fault, hoping that it is someone who will answer.

She’s answered by silence. White light. The fifty-eight faces of herself.

It feels like eternity until it happens again—this time like a lightning bolt slicing through the night sky. Brilliantly pink and just as blinding.

Rose stands to her feet, calls out again.

The second strike comes immediately after the first and with a rumble in the ground—and this time, with a glimpse of color: of green grass, a grey-blue sky, and a person whom she can’t yet make out. With the third strike, the diagonally-shaped slit-like hole within the light is larger—like a double-zippered bag opening; the hole enlarging with each strike of pink lightening.

With the third strike of bright, blinding pink, the hole enlarges and Rose glimpses a face whom she hadn’t expected to see again, ever. Of someone she forgot existed and is filled with _dread_ and _remorse_.

“ _Spinel?!_ ” She stumbles backwards due to the quake beneath her feet, nearly falling but catches herself on one of the flat, reflective surfaces.

Her world explodes in pink again and when it settles, the hole is larger, like an eroding wound.

“Cut it out!”

The cry startles her greatly, partially because while it is unmistakingly male, it sent vibrations through her down to where her core would have been, reverberating through her body, through her chest as if she had spoken the words herself.

Keeping her balance against the walls, Rose looks out through the window-hole and watches Spinel—no, not _her_ Spinel anymore, but someone who is _delirious_ and _deranged_ —smile back at her with _venom_.

“You don’t _poof_ , do you? I figured as much.” Spinel lunges closer, her eyes rolling in her skull like an antique vintage plastic doll. “Just wait! Your human half won’t stand a _chance_ against my injector…not after what I just did to your _gem_ …!”

The hand that had unconsciously raised to Rose’s mouth slowly lowers. _Human half_ , she thinks, bewildered. But before she can ponder it further, the male voice speaks again, lowly, resounding through her chest just as before.

“What are you talking about?”

As Rose watches closely, she can tell that Spinel is struggling against something, pushing her weight forward against someone, it all appearing as if it could be from Rose's own point of view.

“You weren’t always a powerful hero,” Spinel continues. “Were you?”

Spinel’s final laughter seems to echo around Rose’s chamber, ringing in her head, taunting her and reminding her of yet another one of her failures like a tattoo, like a permanent discoloration of a scar. Like the tarnished ends of a family tree. Like the sewn, off-colored patches of an elaborate tapestry. Like the two pigtails, springy physique, and heart-carved gem Rose personalized and cut herself, remnants of her once-perfect playmate.

Through the window to the outside world, Rose watches Spinel get pushed, stumble backwards, still laughing diabolically, before she’s sliced in two by what appears to be the same bright pink lightening at first glance. But Rose studies the wound, sees Spinel poof, and comes to the conclusion that it had been a _Gem rejuvenator_ , not lightening.

She freezes; is filled with perturbation and confusion. If she had a stomach, it would be delivering the same sensation as if it has dropped to her feet.

Whoever it is that Spinel had been fighting has a _rejuvenator_. Knowing what that weapon was for—even banning it and similar weapons when she formed the Crystal Gems—Rose jumps to the conclusion that whoever Spinel was fighting must have been the one who _attacked her_ with the rejuvenator.

So Spinel was in the right with fighting, right?

But still two things stand out in Rose’s mind: what was this _human half_ and what in the world was Spinel doing with an _injector_?

The outside world is still shown through the hole that’s more of a portal; Rose watches Spinel’s gem falls to the grass. The male noisily sighs, drops to his feet—Rose can tell because the ground comes closer in to view—and the rejuvenator’s staff aligns with the horizon. Baffled, Rose steps closer still. Reaches out a hand, aching to break out into the outer world. But then the mirror under her feet begins to quake again and Rose watches in _devastation_ as her window _literally_ begins closing—as if it is a reverse burning of an onscreen film reel, an open wound healing at warp speed.

Rose hurries forward, lunges for the last torn edges of the vanishing portal—she never makes it in time.

Of course she doesn’t.

She already knew she wouldn’t but still insisted to _try_.

She falls forward—again—falling through the mirrored floor and into the blinding white light and all around her is air. She grabs at light, at emptiness. Soon there is color, and then emotion, and then she’s plummeting down as the passages of time speeds past her eyes.

Rose becomes dizzy and unstable by it, and for a moment, thinks she’s passed out—however, she’s still in the empty void as her eyes blink open.

And then as her vision adjusts, the instability of her surroundings contorting, shaping and focusing until she can identify her next destination, and she stabilizes her Quartz form. As her feet touch solid ground, she’s surrounded by the familiar pink clouds of her room at the temple.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _this chapter was relatively short, I know._   
>  _the first half of this was pretty vague; it takes place in the episode "mindful education"_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Rose is given the chance to sit down and have a conversation with her son for the first time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Because the previous chapter was so short I was worried that you readers would not like it. I debated on what to do about that but thanks to a good friend of mine who advised me "Hmmmmmmm well I think as a reader, to read 1k is a good size. But then seeing the next chapter and BOOM it’s 3k, I’d be over joyed." I really hope you all are too_

Rose’s vision is bright light and the smeared colors of time passing by, the goldenrod yellow of the previous world ebbing away behind her and blending into her past. In front of her is the next unforeseen and unknown destination, and she spirals forward filled with more confusion than anything, her previous rage from her stolen sabre sword forgotten.

She shields her eyes as a particular blast of bright pink lights up her void. And then it’s taken over by blue and she feels as if she’s _underwater_ , and then inside a furnace, and then in a compact space but simultaneously in an outer space. Then, suddenly, in the midst of all of these feelings a voice speaks—not as deep or matured as before, but it disturbs her enough that it startles her.

 _“I… I want to see my mom,”_ blurts the voice through the blankness—hesitant, like it’s reserved, timorous.

Like a child.

Her void begins gaining color—a baby pink and floral white—and as she grabs a hold of air, her surroundings begin to transform into clouds. Rose’s mouth opens, gasps, her vision spinning, spinning, before settling with difficulty along with her feet, gaining balance in her room at the temple.

Her room is just as capacious and queen-pink and simulated as she last remembers it, as she last left it. The ground is still soft and buoyance as walking on a mattress. The walls extend out to as far as the eye can perceive, the ceiling an orchid pink sky and the cotton candy pink clouds float aimlessly around the room. From her view, they swirl around her until dissolving to reveal a small human child standing across her room.

Rose stands still, caught in a brief staring contest with the child—who appeared _mostly_ human—quietly wondering how he entered. The hand on her stomach lowers and Rose feels another lurch within herself at remembering what she lost.

Swallowing her feelings and main goals momentarily, she squints at the child. Her fist encloses around the gem she was able to conjure via her room.

Once realizing where she had been headed this time, she made sure to conjure herself a gemstone, intent on using it to study herself and problem-solve her adventures in limbo. But upon seeing the child—whose features make her stop and stare at how alarmingly _greatly_ he favors her—Rose stops and has been staring since, the seconds ticking by like hours with this child watching her doe-eyed and guileless, that feels nearly like looking in a reflection of herself, like she has when fusing with others...but then there is also _Greg_ whom she sees in its face, and Rose stares and she stares and she stares and her stomach flutters and it feels like her heart has stops and she can’t help her relieved, joyous smile that grows and she stares and her hand encloses around her stomach for _an entire different reason_ and as she watches, she knows.

She just… _knows_.

If she had been breathing, her lungs would have hesitated.

The pause and pressure between them is deafening.

“Um,” the child tries, his voice dying as quickly as he spoke.

The boy’s face begins to tinge red and he straightens his posture from jitters, and Rose smiles and fills with an electric current of exhilaration at pinpointing his twiddling thumbs and bashful blush originating from Greg’s mannerisms. Because of the child’s shyness, Rose feels as if she has to restrain herself from ambushing him in glee, from running to him and gathering him in her arms and squealing with joy, with relief, with _love_.

Instead, she forces herself to remain composed and approaches slowly, carrying herself with regal, refinement, and placidity from hundreds of years of alien communication and diplomacy.

Timidly, the child squeaks a greeting. “Hi. I-I’m Steven.”

Approaching the small boy, Rose can’t stop her smile from growing broader; she feels as if she will burst at the seams from restraint. Lowering to a knee, both to help ease the time-dizziness and fatigue from birth—still not able to be eye-level with him, but no bother—she feels tears beginning to prickle her eyes as she greets him back. “Hi, Steven.”

 _Finally_ , she thinks.

 _Impossible_ , also runs through her mind.

His eyes dart from her to his hands, twice, and Rose’s heart swells. With the appropriate poise for his age, Steven stammers a mannered greeting he remembers his father instilling, and stiffly outstretching a hand. “It’s... I-it’s nice to meet you.”

Unable to hold herself any longer, Rose lets out a laugh. Takes his hand with one of hers—one, instead of lifting him in two like she _immensely_ wants to. Feels him vibrating, lowly, a barely noticeable frequency that matches hers.

He’s just as entranced by her as she is of him, Rose thinks.

“It’s nice to meet you too.”

He chuckles nervously then apologizes. “Sorry. This is a little weird for me.”

“That’s okay,” she smiles, biting her tongue from blurting “Me too.” The fatigue from birth is creeping in again, she feels, blinking slowly. She dreads the growing need to recharge, to poof, and inwardly begs that it be held off until after this.

Rose feels a concoction of bliss, remorse, and yearning for this moment to last through infinity, wondering if this is all a clever delusion, a conjured mental dreamland, or it is truly an act of a divine wish come true. She doesn’t allow herself to focus on the swarming thoughts for too long, afraid to ruin this illusion and to live in this moment of pure happiness. She would rather enjoy this one piece of true bliss and let it be unreal versus reality being much more cruel.

“So, what do you want to do?” she asks. She wants to spend as much time with him as she can, knowing that she will be pulled from this moment at any time.

“Oh! I... guess I never thought that far ahead,” the boy admits, and blushes more seeing his mother’s smile grow—at watching her smile, for real and in person, for the first time in his life.

Rose marvels at their parallel thought patterns and tendency to impulsively dive headfirst, at times.

Forcing himself to remain sure-footed while smashing his left thumb to quell his nerves, Steven offers, “Do you wanna play video games?”

On cue, the room conjures a pink Nintendo console with an imitation of his favorite game cartridge, _Lonely Arms_.

And for the first time, Rose takes the hand of her child, watches as he freezes from the contact, pausing as his mind blanks then processes it, and then proceeds to lead her to the game console and television screen. Although it has been thirteen long years of separation, time feels like a blink of the eye for Rose. The thought scares and intrigues her—like, what causes all of this, she wonders. Is this just a fantasy? Limbo? True Hell, a constant taunting and torturing that presents her with riddles, mental exhaustion, and questions more than answers?

Steven’s hand is tiny and trembling in hers, and she becomes afraid knowing how small humans are born—she’s scared to see how small he would have been upon birth, if she would have been able to hold or support him successfully.

As they walk, Steven glances up at her and catches her stone expression that is deep in thought. Rose catches his gaze from her side, mentally falls back to the present, and squeezes his hand in reassurance. Steven blushes.

She follows his motions of sitting and taking a game controller.

“So tell me about this game, Steven.” 

It feels nice to be able to say his name—to say it to him instead of her pregnant stomach. She wants to say it as much as possible, to revel in the fact that he will answer and react to his name. That she can now settle on a specific name.

“Well,” he starts. “I guess it’s an arm-wrestling simulator…which is a spin-off from a fighting game…based on a show about a lonely swordsman that I like.” He’s slowly warming up to her presence. “It’s kind of weird and hard to explain…but that’s why I like it.”

“That sounds just marvelous.”

But Steven makes the mistake of not showing her how to play beyond basic button names—“You press the A button to wrestle, the B button for defense, the one back here with your finger for kicking. Ready? Go!” It is of little importance compared to the fact that she gets the gift of being close to him and being able to really see and watch him, naturally, as he’s fallen distracted. She takes this time to study his features: a nose and eyes like hers, the ears and forehead and eyebrows like his father, along with the way his tongue pokes out and to the side as Steven concentrates on the game; his curly ringlets that are just like hers, and his chin and cheekbones from her to match. She observes his slumped posture that many humans tend to have, and for a fraction of a second she’s hit with the urge to correct him to make him straighten, like hers, to appear confident and dignified. But Rose catches and dispels the impulsive thought just in time for the television elicit a victorious tune for a winning round.

Appropriately childlike, Steven throws his hands up into the air in triumph. “Yay! I won!”

“Yay, you won!” Rose supports, the concept of the video game lost to her.

Now uninterested with the game, Steven rests a cheek in his hands. “What else do kids do with their parents?” he muses aloud.

“What else?” Rose’s heart clenches in concern over assumptions and fear of his upbringing: was he not around other human children? From what she knows, they are a very social species. Not being around others can be detrimental.

Rose is thinking about her planned wording and is opening her mouth to question her son when a football is conjured for Steven, successfully interrupting before she can voice any of her thoughts. He looks to her, hopeful and imploring, and her heart melts, willing to give him anything he desires.

Rose simply answers his pleading gaze, “How do you want to play this game?” And watches in amusement as Steven’s face breaks out in a wide, childish smile which he immediately attempts to squash but fails.

The first attempt at a game of catch is a mishap, Steven admits to himself—he’d told her to “Go long!” and receives a clueless look. After walking with her to a certain distance—totally just an excuse to walk by her side—he tells her to remain in her spot and explains the simple objectives of the game. Still, the next following attempts are equally as bad: at first, she hadn’t thrown the ball far enough. The second time, she threw it too far and by the time Steven retrieved it, he was heavily breathing on his trek back. The next several times involve adjustments to her strength in relation to him. Because he is half gem, Rose assumed he could handle her strength, and accidentally sends the ball flying into her son’s stomach, winding him.

Rushing to attend as aid, Rose’s hands frantically search for an injury. Steven just blinks, coughs, and lies that he’s “just fine” but his mother’s worry doesn’t subside. He becomes jittery when she asks if he’s hurt badly. He blushes again when she finds a darkening red bruise on his stomach above his gemstone.

“Well,” he goes, rubbing the elbow he’d fallen back on. “It does hurt a little.”

He’s unable to react as a hand gently rubs his stomach.

“ _Where?_ ”

Feebly, he gives a mumble about his elbow and watches with eyes as wide as saucers as she wipes a thumb at the gathering tears of worry, then Steven’s eyes sparkle at watching her thumb apply her tears to his bruised elbow.

“Feel better?”

Marveling at his first mother-son interaction, he can only nod and give a “Mhm.”

“I’m glad,” Rose sighs. Thinking it would do both of them good to lighten the mood, she meets the gaze of her son who looks like a near doppelgänger and she grins. “You’re quite strong, Steven,” she praises, her hand moving to rub a thumb over his elbow. “Brave too.” She winks in play, earning a shy grin from him.

“You think so?” He’s more bashful to ask.

“The bravest!” Her hand returns to his stomach to give a squeeze that makes him squirm and giggle. Gathering him in her arms as she walks them back to the spot near the game console, she asks, “How old are you, Steven? You’re still so small.”

His fingers tighten around the football. “Thirteen. I… I think it’s a Gem thing—why I’m short.”

“You are?”

He nods. “Other kids are taller than me.” He looks off to the side, not catching his mother’s concern. “I’m not sure why. I wish I was taller, though.”

“Really? Wh—”

“Maybe if I was taller than people would take me seriously.”

“Steven, that’s not how life works.” A chuckle sneaks into her voice; it doesn’t hold any merit. “You can do plenty of things just the way you are.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” he pouts, very much like the child he is. “Dad thinks it’s a Gem thing too. And Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst do too. There was this one time I tried to give myself cats for fingers and...”

Rose immediately picks up on his discomfort over the topic and stops waking.

“I found out I can make myself look older...or younger...”

“So can I,” Rose comments, it escaping before thinking. After the fact, she backtracks. “Does...shape-shifting make you uncomfortable, Steven?”

Looking up at her, he notices the hint of worry on her face—of course she would be, he thinks; she’s a Gem so shape-shifting must come naturally to them.

“Um, kind of,” he admits. “But...I have a friend, Connie, and I remember her saying something about nutrition and energy... I don’t know. I think I should ask Amethyst about it to see if it’s true or not.”

“Amethyst, huh?” Rose raises an eyebrow, inquiring.

Steven nods. “She knows the most about human stuff. If I were to ask my Dad...he would just go straight to Pearl, and ever since this one visit to the family barn, she makes me eat _all_ the green foods in one sitting whenever Dad brings them from the food pantry. It’s been like this for a month.”

“Pearl has always been an initiator and good at things like this,” Rose chuckles fondly. “And I’m guessing you don’t like those green foods?”

“Specifically artichokes. Broccoli stinks.” He makes a face of disgust.

Rose smiles, holding in a chuckle, and raises her chin, refined. “But if that’s important for humans, it sounds like you should eat those green foods and listen to Pearl. Research is her specialty, so she knows what she’s talking about.” Her arms tighten around him cradled, her head lowering and her bangs covering her eyes. “I want you to grow big and strong. Okay, Steven?”

He leans into her, losing his tension and stress. “Yeah… Okay. You’re right.”

His face heats up once more at registering the sudden emotion that had seeped into her voice. But then a thought occurs to him, canceling it.

“You say my name a lot—I mean, you don’t have to. Like, it’s nice, but—I didn’t know The Room does that.”

The falter in Rose’s movements, the plunge in her expression that strikes him in alarm.

“You think I’m—?”

He thinks she’s a figment created by the temple’s gem-assigned Room.

Rose’s mouth falls open, her arms grow weak, knife-sharp tears sting the back of her eyes. She plans to object, to tell him the truth—she really does—but he interrupts with an innocent inquiry to be set on his feet. And Rose, still too shocked to even say words and confused on how she ended up here in the first place, doesn’t verbalize anything. Near robotically, she follows her son’s instructions to hold the football and wait until he waves his arms in an agreement signal. Rose’s eyes spin and her mind begins to spiral. Her track of thought jumps from the void to her being here in her Room and able to conjure a gemstone, to the glass butterflies, to the prison of mirrors, to the forest and the mysterious Gem-human hybrid creature under shadow that glowed a faint pink—

That glowed a faint pink—

That appeared mostly human and what glowed pink—with hair like hers—

Eyes wide and disturbed, Rose turns to Steven standing seven feet away, watching her. His cheerful expression changes, flashing startled, almost in fright. He’s seen her eyes catch a flash of pink, the pupils distorting for that fraction of a second, he thinks, eyes squinting, but he isn’t quite sure and is still unsettled.

That creature sleeping in the woods had been Steven.

No.

_No._

Rose’s grip tightens around the football. She hasn’t moved a muscle and her son is growing uncomfortable.

That person the woods had been him, larger, _older_.

But, _how?_

“Um, Mom?” The boy whispers, disturbed by her sudden stillness and stone-still stare, suddenly very aware about how alien she truly is—she is as unmoving as a statue, no rising of her chest from breathing, no protruding vein from stress, nothing at all. “You’re worrying me. Are you alright?”

She has to take a moment. Calms herself. Plants her feet on the ground. Pushes down the rising emotions—the overwhelming feeling to cry over time missed, the urge to scream out of confusion, of the fear of being unable to stop what is happening.

When Rose blinks and forces a smile, she hopes it appears calm enough to convince him. “Sorry about that. I was only thinking.”

He visibly relaxes at this. “Oh. ...About what?”

“What you might look like when you grow older.”

“Oh.” He thinks for a moment. Wants to ask her opinion on the future, swallows it, and asks instead, “Well, are you okay now?”

It’s her turn to begin relaxing. “I am perfect as long as I am with you.”

And with the appropriate enthusiasm for his age and short attention span, he’s eager to go to the next topic, purposely ignoring the concerning conversation that just occurred. “Great! Let’s play!”

As he gathers distance, her smile diminishes as sorrow claws at her stomach.

What in the world is happening to her? What has been happening to her? How is any of this possible?

Rose’s thoughts are interrupted and put on the back burner when Steven cups his mouth and yells for her to throw the football once more, reminding her of the previous failed attempts. Rose wills herself to forget her thoughts for now and to focus on this miracle that she has that’s the ability to be with her son, even for a little while.

Even if he thinks it’s all an illusion.

Even if it might very well be.

As he runs for the ball, she wipes an eye dry with the back of her hand. She calls, “Nice catch, son!” raises a thumbs up with an encouraging smile and tries to not let her depression show.

He throws the ball back. “This is fun. Or would baseball be better?”

Remembering discussions with Earthlings, she answers as she runs and catches his throw midair. “Steven, all sports are beautiful. Each sport is a unique experience: the adrenaline, the glory, the sheer feats of athleticism. Each one so complicated, and yet, exactly the same.”

She floats, landing gracefully on her feet. His eyes light up in admiration.

One last game is shared of him running to kick and she pulling the ball at the last moment before she turns serious, patting the soft ground beside her for sitting. Obedient and unguarded, he mimics her position on the ground. He’s also the first to speak.

“I’ve been... Uh, thinking about you—a lot lately. More than usual.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. Well, for my whole life I’ve been hearing stories about you. About how amazing you were. You were so kind and loving. And every time I would see the painting of you hanging in the temple, I’d be inspired. I’m reminded about how much I have to live up to.”

Adverting his stare to save his own embarrassment, he misses his mother’s reaction and her mouth opening to speak. But again, unknowingly, he speaks before she can explain.

“I’ve even thought about dying my hair pink more than once,” he cradles his forehead, feeling exposed.

Instead of receiving ridicule or a taunting chuckle—like he had with Lars, like the snickers from Amethyst—he gets her hand delicately carting through his curls and an amused chuckle that makes him face her, fairly startled.

“There’s nothing wrong with your hair. It’s wonderful just the way it is; wonderful in _every_ way.” Her hand slides from his hair to cradle his cheek in adoration. “Just like you.”

The words feel good to say out loud, this time with a different and personal meaning to it that isn’t lost to Rose. Her heart feels as if it will over-swell and hurts from the amount she adores her son, once again wishing she could provide a life she was denied: a happy one with a healthy family, freedom, and love. She wants to make him feel as loved as possible, stressed and worried as least as possible, for as much she can in this amount of time. 

Then Steven leans over and places his head on her knee, and Rose has to hold back tears of sorrow once more, placing one hand on his small back and the other resting on his head.

For the first time in his life, Steven feels safe and secure in a way that hasn’t ever come from the Gems or his father, and he cries about it for the both of them. “This is nice. This—it’s _really_ nice! I should have tried this a long time ago!”

He’ll never be aware of the two teardrops that fall and soak into his curls.

“Steven, don’t you realize we’ve been together this whole time?”

“Oh, that’s right!”

Pulling out a cellphone, he explains that he wishes to capture this moment in a picture. But to his surprise, the front-facing camera only catches him against a blank, black background. Due to it, he doesn’t catch the devastation his mother wears.

How is she not showing up in the reflection? _She’s right here!_

Or _is_ she?

_How is she even here?_

The processing of reality is written all over his face as he stands to face her, solemn and disenchanted.

“You’re not my mom.” The words drop like stone, like weights into a river.

“I’m—not!?”

“This is how I _want_ you to be, but I _don’t know_ if this is who you really _are_. I’ve learned things about you—things you wanted to keep secret...”

Reacting to his emotions, the simulated pink sky begins to darken, mimicking a rainstorm.

“Steven, I’m not a—”

He continues, too lost in his emotions. “You locked Bismuth away inside Lion because she wanted to shatter Gems and you never told Garnet or Pearl! But then you shattered Pink Diamond!” He grabs his hair, his emotions rising to an overflow. “Now all of Homeworld has it out for Earth, the Crystal Gems, and _me!_ You put us _all_ in danger and you just _disappeared!_ ”

He punctuates with a yell and Rose endures his justified anger. Her bangs hide the tears brimming, preparing to fall, knowing he’s right and too startled to speak.

This was not how she expected this to go. None of this was what she planned to ever be known—but perhaps that was her mistake, wasn’t it? Watching her better half, the familiar swirl of guilt and deprecation makes itself known and Rose mentally beats herself up about her past mistakes hurting others, but this time hurting the one who matters the most to her.

Her throat tightens in effect of it all. “Steven, I’m—!”

Lightening cracks, scaring the boy for a moment. Clouds lower to the ground, creating busy fog. The wind picks up, lifting the boy off the ground from its force. Rose stands, readying to tell him everything but the clouds grow dense and relentless, swirling around them at increasing speed as they follow the wind currents from Steven’s emotions. Rose steps closer but the clouds engulf her then, and the last thing she sees before being encased by clouds is the wind tossing Steven into the air.

And then the pink clouds disperse and she’s in a completely different location.

A _familiar_ location.

Glancing below, within the flurry of colors and imagery of passing time, she sees a familiar pink throne chair as Pearl’s beaconing call echoes across time and in Rose’s ears.

* * *

Days after conjuring the storm in his inherited Room, Steven obeys Garnet’s call for him to eat dinner, climbs onto one of the high-stool chairs and awaits. She’s attempting meatloaf recipe seen on a cooking talk show and remembering it being one of the dishes Steven had a craving for a week straight, two years ago. Because she’s made it enough times now (and because Pearl despises the feel of ground meat) it’s prepared with less than forty percent being burned and with considerably more seasoning to where it’s pleasant to eat.

Serving a perfect rectangle cut on a ceramic plate, the boy’s negative expression is not lost to her but she waits until he’s picked up a fork and hesitates to take a bite.

“What is on your mind?”

No longer startled by her bluntness, he thinks about how to word his thoughts as he rakes the prongs of his fork across the ketchup-barbecue sauce glazed over the meatloaf.

“It’s about Rose’s Room, isn’t it?”

Now startled, Steven squeaks her accuracy. “Well—kind of—um, not really.”

Since her visor had been removed for cooking, he watches her eyebrow raise over her blue eye, unconvinced, and her third lilac-colored eye squints.

“Do we have any vegetables?” He adds as a second thought to cover himself, “If you don’t have anything to do, like, go on another mission…”

Garnet’s expression doesn’t change as she leans forward across the counter, resting her chest over her folded arms. “Since when do you ask for vegetables? You’re usually perfectly fine to not have them on your plate,” the Ruby in her blurts.

“I know. I was just thinking—”

“That you want vegetables with your meatloaf instead of milk?”

“No, I still want my milk.”

Garnet glances down to his lonely plate, empty except for an extra squeeze of ketchup beside his square of meatloaf. Garnet’s expression shifts as she meets his eyes again. “We don’t have the money, Steven. Right now you’re going to have to make do with the few soups, pizza, and canned things that Greg occasionally brings.”

Steven’s head lowers but he’s understanding.

“For now, if you’re really into eating your vegetables, you can always order a fish salad from Fish Stew Pizza—”

“No! Their salad tastes bad! All salad is awful!”

* * *

Once after an outing with the Gems, Steven receives a scrape that slowly oozes blood. His nonchalance about it is the horror to Pearl.

With his excuse that “the temple’s Room will heal him just like last time,” it rightfully raises confusion among the Gems.

“None of The Rooms have healing abilities. At the most, they all only create simulations.”

“But—” Steven swallows his words and doesn’t speak further on it. In fact, he never tells anyone what happened in The Room that day, now too embarrassed.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _thanks to all of you who left kudos and hello to the new subscribers. I see you all and thanks for reading! I hope you are liking this so far. A quick note: this story is set to get more serious and progress further in the next chapter._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What is this without a dash of angst?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _hi, I hope everyone is staying safe, healthy, and having a decent time. Even though I can't say the same for Rose about having a decent time._
> 
> _as per the opinions from the previous chapter, this one is kept in it full and is a bit longer. (expect I moved a section from this chapter to the next because it would have been too much.) I hope you all like this still! also, I deleted the note in the previous chapter so don't mind it anymore._

For many, the concept of an afterlife is so groundbreaking that humans build, reform, or direct their entire lives around a possibility of a furthering their own existence—whether this cause is a result of the very-human fear that life is finite or through an existential crisis are equally likely to the cause. This reasoning behind an afterlife has been integrated into many cultures across the planet Earth as well as playing into the role of fear and concerns about creating an extension of oneself: how would one’s death affect his or her’s family? What about their other loved ones? What about their property, estate, finances, or debt? What about one’s children and further dependents?

Children are very easily a sensitive and worrisome topic—one reasonable reason is that they are innocent beings who never had a say whether to be born or not, and this fact can be looked at with care. Or, children can be seen as an extension of their parents, literally. This is where it becomes controversial.

Gems don’t have children—the thought is _laughable_. When reflecting, Rose is incredibly positive that her predecessor, White Diamond, would have thought the consideration hilarious.

There’s no reason Gems would want children. There is no reason any Gems would want a _concept_ of a child when they can willingly make another Gem with half of the effort that human beings use.

But the aforementioned concepts are not the reasons that convinced Rose to: it is a combination of testimonials from other humans; what finally convinced Rose was that children are a product of the miracle of life and are able to change and develop and grow—the human species is, specifically.

Also, more overall, Rose was captivated by the thought of being able to extend herself into someone else, someone _better_.

She didn’t want to be here anymore, yes, partially, but if she could become someone better who had more freedom and ability to not remain _rigid_ , it was too promising to pass up.

And, like all parents, Rose’s reason is controversial in her own way.

* * *

Rose— _Pink’s_ Diamond palace is towering walls of polished stone, shades of pink, and tapestries that feel more like prison bars than tradition incorporated into art. It’s looming arched windows, decorative glass, sculptured Gems, reflective floors, and quaternary colored controls for her computers. But all of it, all of the empty hallways and rooms she once occupied, pass by like a rushing reel, like she’s a ghost only floating through. She sees the steam room she used to occupy, her garden and it overgrowing in time, the rooms where her subjects now float, poofed and bubbled.

Pink’s hand raises to her stomach, once again feeling it flat and her naval hollow-carved; her other palm presses against her mouth and nose in distress. She thinks about the small boy she was just ripped from, about how she literally held him in her hands and her heart begins to break. She shuts her eyes against the rising emotions but tears still slip out.

From her void as she passes through time, she sees one of the rooms where she used to create subjects of her own, of the terrarium where Yellow and Blue Diamond collected and stored Earth species in an attempt to pacify her, rooms where she used to keep Gem-animals to play. As Pink’s journey nears her personal quarters, she overhears echoing whispers. Wiping her eyes dry, she realizes she has returned to her Diamond form, staring down in shock at her gloved hand. She tries to shape-shift back to her Quartz form but finds that it cannot be completed. Her first thought is of terror—she fears to repeat the incident like back in the diamond-shaped chamber, forced to stare at her own reflection for eternity. (She doesn’t know if these incidents will continue for eternity, but the possibility is terrifying enough.) Her next thought are the whispers: about the one that rises above the rest being bone-chilling with familiarity.

_“I am unsure about this, my Diamond. The percentage rate of success…”_

Pink catches a glimpse of her old palanquin within the rapid flashes of memory.

“…And then you’ll be done. It’s going to be easy.” The words fall from Pink’s lips without a choice, as if something other than her is determining her speech.

 _“You know this is crazy, right?”_ The disembodied voice narrates Pink’s own thoughts and feelings. _”Your status. My purpose. None of it will matter anymore. This will change everything.”_

 _Pearl_ , she thinks, putting a name to the voice.

“I know. Isn’t it exciting?” Pink speaks the words with far less enthusiasm than they probably were meant. “We can leave our old lives behind. If this is really my world, I want to give it to the Crystal Gems. I want to live with human beings. I want to live here with you. We’ll both finally be free.”

A hand raises to Pink’s mouth as the memory hits her like a bullet train: this is the last conversation she had before severing her ties with Homeworld and her own origins.

 _“I can’t believe I’m about to do this,”_ Pink hears through the passage of time.

She speaks her lines more from memory than the invisible forces making her: “I can’t exactly shatter myself.”

She catches sight of her throne chair between a blue and yellow copy, greater in size. She sees her moon base, reflections within still fountain water, the flower-shaped designs punched into the walls of her palanquin.

The rest of the conversation speaks in her ears and fall from her mouth. “Soon it will just be Rose,” she speaks to an invisible Pearl and wonders why she is having this memory.

“Wait, there is just one last thing I need to do,” she continues.

_“Yes?”_

“No one can ever find out we did this. I never want to look back,” Pink speaks and wonders, with dread seeping into her gut, if she is heading back to Homeworld. “So, for my last order to you as a Diamond, please...let’s never speak of this again. No one can know,” she says, her throat tightening at the start of regret and love lost and family forever gone. It hits her, again, that whatever she’s in now will never put her back in the path of her loved ones again.

She thinks about Pearl and she thinks about Steven and her heart breaks further.

Closing her eyes, she still can’t un-see the memory: her diverse bands of Quartz, the curtains of her bedroom, her vanity and mirror, the courtyards she spent with Blue Diamond, the blank pale-pink and perfectly carved walls of her room.

Pink’s balance is off when her shoes touch solid ground again, stumbling on her feet. After falling to her hands and knees, letting her head hang to ease the time-dizziness, she observes her surroundings and finds to her horror that she’s indeed back in her personal Diamond quarters. Pink flips over, falling on her backside and scurries backwards until her head hits a wall.

Immediately—as expected, as they were ordered to during their creation, as they are _programmed_ —Pebbles peek out from doors in the walls. Two fall to her shoulder; Pink cringes. Six more jump to the floor; they coo in glee at her return before they fall silent to glance across the room then back to Pink Diamond. She watches as those around look between her and over their shoulders before becoming distressed then spontaneously combusting, unable to differentiate but knowing something is _odd_. That was always their flaw, Pink thinks of her Pebbles—at the slightest distressful decision, they make themselves crumble, the equivalent of shattering themselves.

Following their gazes, to her dismay she sees her son, still young and small, lying across a construction furniture raised from the floor and dressed in the same pantone pink outfit as her Diamond form. She chokes on emotion again, eyes stinging from tears as she crawls in a hurry to his side, repeating “ _No_ ” in a devastated whisper.

“ _This isn’t what I wanted_ ,” is sobbed in a harsh whisper, not wanting to awake him. “This is _far_ from what I wanted for you! I _never_ wanted you to see this place!” Her eyes close tightly as do her fists, bowed over her small child, bringing her hands to his sides as wishing to cradle him in the cup of her hands. “Oh, my baby. I’m so sorry they dragged you into this...” The side of a hand grazes his garments and the smoothened woven rock stings to the touch—more from memory than actuality. Hesitant, Pink raises a hand to his head and hovers as if she’s afraid that touching him will make him combust too. She’s careful to test a touch to his hair before weaving her fingers into his curls that she still can’t help but _marvel_ at how much they resemble hers; her hand slides to cup his cheek, still plump from baby fat. “I’m so sorry, Steven...” Tears fall onto his pink garments. Her shoulders shake from sobbing.

He stirs from a fetal position to roll over onto his back, remaining asleep.

She assumes that the brown-skinned female child at the other end of the cushioned structure is a friend of Steven’s—she’s also asleep and facing away from the two, luckily. Pink wipes at an eye and is glad that he had found companionship in his existence; she knows all too well what it feels like to be lonely. She remembers what he’d just told her in her temple Room.

_“Now all of Homeworld has it out for Earth, the Crystal Gems, and me! You put us all in danger and you just disappeared!”_

The words of truth he’d yelled at her in sorrow rings in her ears. Whether he was meant to speak this in his future or whether he’d already done so before arriving at her palace is irrelevant, the thought occurs to her. For the fact of the matter is: her child is still found by the fate that she worked _so desperately_ to erase, avoid, and reform.

Pink rises to slide onto the structure beside him, carefully lifting his head to rest on her thigh. “I’m so sorry,” she repeats with a hand on his head again, both at the memory of his words and due to her larger size it’s difficult to have him rest his head in her lap like before.

More Pebbles peek out from the doors and windows inside her quarter’s walls and floor. A few more become distressed and confused over two pink Diamonds and self-combust.

Pink is unaware inside her room, having tunnel vision only for her offspring. Eyes still downcast, she doesn’t think about her falling tears until Steven stirs underneath her hand. Until his eyes open and cranes his neck back to stare at her. Blinks. Groggily questions, “Are you Pink Diamond?”

She’s stunned to silence, realizing her mistake in stirring him but simultaneously gleeful that he’s awake.

His eyes close again, still mostly asleep. “Are you my mom?”

His eyes open in a squint long enough to catch her sad smile and a head nod.

“How long until Dogcopter comes on?” he mumbles.

Pink hums, returning her hand to his head.

“I’m scared,” is said, nearly in a whisper, but Pink still hears and her heart clenches.

“I know, Steven. Me too.”

Half-asleep, he lies a hand on top of hers that’s on his hair.

“You’ve got to be strong, okay?” She forces the encouragement through the constriction of fear in her throat. “You have to be strong and sly here. Patience doesn’t really work; you’ll have to be cunning. Remember that.” Her spare hand grips her empty thigh.

Beside her, Connie stirs from her own dreams.

“You’ll get out of here,” Pink Diamond leans over him. “I’ll get you out of here, and you’ll never have to return.” She kisses his forehead as tears fall onto his face again.

Steven murmurs incoherently. Pink can only distinguish the words “umbrella” and “rain.” She smiles nonetheless, no less fascinated by him—her miracle.

He is her miracle to entire galaxies, and she would be damned to not get him out of this Hell he has been pulled into.

“I’ll get you out of here,” she repeats, more for herself.

But—

 _But_ —

Pink exits the tunnel vision she’s been in and finally observes the room to plan for an escape. She freezes—at first because she’s startled, alarmed, unpredicted and feeling like being spied upon—and then she’s _thrilled_ and _thankful_ despite the _stupefied_ opened-mouth stares from Amethyst and Garnet. Glancing around the room, the two are the only Gems here.

Pink gives a greeting smile—it still sorrowful and not reaching her eyes—and raises a finger to her mouth in a motion to remain quiet, remembering Amethyst’s habit of shouting in exclamation.

“ _How_ —?” Garnet starts.

“I—?” Amethyst doesn’t know how to start.

“ _Pink Diamond_ —?”

Amethyst’s gaze lowers and the color in her face pales. “Your _gem_...”

The Diamond’s hand raises to her stomach feeling the shallow space where her gemstone should be.

“What are you?” Garnet whispers harshly, jumping to her feet, summoning her gauntlets. “This must be one of their new technologies; a hologram made to spy on us!”

Pink glances towards the room’s doors. She answers much more calmly than she feels despite wet eyes. “I’m me. It’s _really me_. I—” Her guise of a smile melts away realizing she has to admit her truth, finally. “I can’t shape-shift right now. I’m actually Rose Quartz—in her true form. Rose Quartz—me—I’m actually a Diamond.”

Garnet interrupts. “We’ve been made aware.”

“I’m sorry, to all of you. I’m sorry I never told you. I didn’t want anyone to know because I didn’t want to be treated like a Diamond and I wanted to leave that part of my life behind, permanently.”

“Well that didn’t work out for anyone, now did it?” Garnet’s words are true but they hurt nonetheless.

“No, you’re right.” Pink wipes at her eyes, head lowering in dejection. “Keep going. I deserve everything you have to say.”

And Garnet does lay it out: Sapphire’s break down, Ruby’s struggle for confidence after finding out Rose’s secret already; about Steven being hurt the most because of the Diamonds; about all of their long-dead fellow Crystal Gems who should have been told Rose’s secret from the start which could have possibly given them leverage in the war; about Pearl and Amethyst’s mourning—

When she mentions Amethyst, the pale-purple-tinted Gem interrupts, still drained of color. “If you’re not a hologram, where is your gem...?”

Pebbles sneak peeks at the hushed commotion. Those who combust crumble to rubble and fall to the bare floor.

Pink needs a moment to process the change in tones. ”My gem... It’s right here.” Her gaze turns to the glistening pink stone where her son’s naval should be. Her expression drops, re-thinking her own assumption about the gemstone. “I can’t tell you how I got here, and I don’t know why...but I _am_. I’m _here now_ and I am _so, terribly_ sorry to you two—to Pearl—to everyone.” Her words gain strength, as does her posture. “But if anyone knows how to deal with the Diamonds, it’s me, and I promise I will get you all out of here and get rid of The Authority for good.” Her face falls then. “…Even if I have to give my life again.”

Garnet disperses her gauntlets.

An energy-charged silence passes in the room. It’s broken by Connie’s snoring momentarily increasing in volume.

“You all have changed so much. That’s so wonderful. You both look great,” Pink compliments, honestly, with a soft smile.

Amethyst is still in a state of shock, trying to process everything. “How—you’re _here?_ But—”

“I don’t know, Amethyst...”

“But we _saw_ you turn into—we saw you _die!_ ”

“I wish I knew what answer to give you. But all I _do_ know is that I _miss_ you all greatly. And from what Steven here tells me,” she looks down at the sleeping boy at her side, “you all and Pearl have been doing a good job. Thank you so—”

“You _spoke_ with Steven!?” Garnet blurts.

Lowly as if to herself and still in a trance, Amethyst murmurs, “Vidalia mentioned something like this...”

Garnet and Pink comment at the same time: “ _Vidalia?_ ”

Garnet places a hand on her fellow Gem’s shoulder, trying to bring her back to the present.

“Years ago—Steven was a baby and I—it was at Vidalia’s house. She mentioned something about seeing Rose. She called it a ghost. Me and Sour Cream were there but didn’t see—it was after you— _you abandoned us_.”

“Amethyst? When did this happen?” Garnet tries.

“I never saw Steven as an infant. Only at this age—and a little older, I presume,” Pink objects.

“You’ve seen—?” Garnet is stunned. The Sapphire in her grows distressed. “Why hadn’t I foreseen this...?”

“I barely know what is going on myself.” Pink opens her arms, trying to be optimistic. “But we’re all here now. Together, again! But I have been meaning to ask, where is Pearl?”

As if on cue, the room’s twin doors open as her Pearl and life-partner enters the room, and Pink grows a little more relieved and happier.

“How are things holding up here? Are they still asleep?” Pearl asks with a raised eyebrow, noting the Gems’ stances and the energy in the room. “What happened here?” She peers at the small piles of rubble Pebbles dotting the room.

Garnet and Amethyst turn to Pink, ready to explain, but she’s vanished without a sound or a chance—just like years ago, it’s thought, begrudgingly. The last evidence of her ever being there is Steven sitting upright on the makeshift bed, groggily awakening and rubbing the back of his head from it suddenly falling against the rock part of the structure.

He groans. “What happened? Pearl?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry. Go back to sleep,” she lulls, rubbing circles on his stomach.

Watching the spot Pink Diamond had just been creates heavy weights in their stomachs. Garnet and Amethyst share an uncertain glance.

* * *

Pink Diamond squints as her palace walls elongate and the Crystal Gems stretch thin, then appear to smear like wet paint. She sees Pearl enter through the door and for a fraction of a moment, she’s content, a hand outstretched for her lover seconds before time pulls her out of reach forever.

In one moment, her child is at her side, her fingers on the cloud-puffs of his ringlet curls, then in the blink of an eye he’s snatched—literally—from her hand.

It’s heartbreaking. It’s traumatizing.

This shouldn’t happen, she thinks.

But it is, unfortunately, and she blinks against the lights of passing time gradually growing brighter. Smears of pink surround her that transform to cerulean blue and seaweed green; before she’s able to gain her bearings this time, the ground rushes up too quickly for her feet to steady on and she falls to her knees instead, scrapping her caps and her palms on broken shells and rock warmed by the sun. Her head spins from the intensity of this journey, it more abrupt than the others, and she can’t help but lean forward to rest her forehead on the ground.

After some time, Pink Diamond blinks her eyes open, the world still slightly spinning. Glides her fingers forward. Feels sun-toasted sand between her gloved fingers. Looks forward to see a sand crab scuttle away. Seagulls glide towards a town half a mile away. Blinks against the unforgiving high-noon sun.

Pink bows her back in an arch, stretching, lifts her head from the sand. Shakes off ants that have crawled onto her arms. Moving a fraction a moment, she eventually sits up on her knees. With a hand shielding her eyes, she surveys the surrounding distance—the ocean horizon, the grassy cliff face behind her, the edge of the far-off town peaking from behind the cliff—and realizes her location is _familiar_.

That’s also when she notices the large blanket folded on the ground as if it had been placed there, waiting for her. She shakes it out before examining it—and it’s the same blanket she’s used many times in the years she had been with Greg. It was made specifically for her—extra-extra-large and ineptly sewn two blankets together.

Pink Diamond doesn’t react more so because she doesn’t know _how_ to, still trying to wrap her mind around everything. As of now, she _thinks_ she’s somehow been travelling throughout time but still isn’t able to answer _how_.

Before draping it around her shoulders, she gives the blanket a sniff—it smells of dust, rain, and ocean spray and as if it dried out here. This time she wrinkles her nose and does give a reaction.

The time-dizziness gone now, there is a rectangular plastic Tupperware left beside the blanket and its compartment halfway buried in sand. Popping the lid’s claps open, inside is a queen chess piece painted pink, clearly meant to represent her Quartz form. Beside it is a folded page of line paper—a letter written in ink which she can already read some of it, it in Greg’s script—and two colored photographs: one of Greg taken beside a portrait of her Quartz form, and one of Greg and a young Steven.

Tears prick Pink Diamond’s eyes. Her hand settles on her flat stomach, fingers digging into the shallow hole on her naval, and her vision grows blurry.

Chess piece and photograph with Steven in one hand, Pink Diamond stands to her feet, her other hand closing the blanket around her shoulders. Her steps are unsteady but determined. Rounding the corner of the cliff, the sculpture of her Crystal Gems’ group fusion, Obsidian, greets her—the back of her hand runs against the cliff rock, feeling it weathered smooth like she remembered and helped carve herself. A tiny grin tugs at her lips at the memory.

Below the statue is a human house stands where her cavern home used to be. She glances at the chess piece and photograph enclosed in her hand and hopes this is not another seemingly random location. She transforms into her Quartz form before pursuing, knowing that humans respond more positively to it.

Steadily creeping around the house toward its stairs, she’s ambushed by her pink lion, it running up to her and raising its front paws to her chest and roughly rubbing its head into her neck, clearly nostalgic. He releases a mournful yowl, changes positions to nudge his head into the other side of her neck.

“Hello, friend! I missed you too.” Rose returns his hug.

Lion successfully distracts her until a thunderous crash sounds from the house. The feline startles in her arms; Rose watches, alarmed, as a monstrous, scaly appendage breaks through the wooden roof. Splintered wood, plaster, and black cloth rain down. The creature breaks through the front of the house, crashing through the wooden balcony, falls to and rolls onto the beach. Lion sprints from Rose’s arms and she’s left to watch the creature—a foul mix of flesh and scutes, it growing scales, growing back spikes, and scream a mutated wet cry of pain.

It’s a grisly, hideous, horrifying scene, really, watching the thing writhe on the sand as each part of its body steadily enlarges, consecutively, so Rose is left to watch each hideous detail of its transformation—it’s body pulse as if containing something within, it’s flesh ripple inhumanly and change into a hard, leathery texture; claws growing, a tail emerges slimy and fresh, spikes grow from its spinal bone and breaking the skin and tearing the remainder of its shirt to tatters. Bones crack and re-position. Joints pop and the ugly creature gives something between a sob and a shriek.

When it finally turns and Rose catches its face, she’s struck by devastation as it takes on an even more terrifying connotation: she watches an older version of her son, larger and _glowing pink_ meet her gaze as his eyes turn the final tints to a tenebrous black. It doesn’t take a Gem expert to know that his mind is gone; the hollowness in his gaze sends a fear through her that she hadn’t felt in eons.

Rose backs away but is unable to avert her attention. The last of his skin hardens and toughens and he rapidly increases in size. Blood pours from his jaw as tusks force their way through, his teeth and jaw shifting position to all fangs and to accommodate their growth. His nose elongates grotesquely into a snout, all the while his inhuman snarl chilling her to the bone. His hair sheds from his body; twin horns push their way from out his skull, his blood’s streams near his eyes and his head shakes instinctly.

Lion finds a human-looking girl who climbs onto his back. They are followed by other Gems—one of whom is Bismuth, who makes Rose’s stomach drop further catching a split-second view.

As Steven’s reptilian pink body grows in size, he holds Rose’s stare, almost as if he intends to make her _watch_ his transformation. And—it may be a trick of her ears—it _has_ to be, it _must_ be—Rose believes it is a trick of her deep desires cynically mixing with the current real-life horror that she picks up the guttural, inhuman speech fall from her son’s monster jaws.

Steven’s last human speech is a single word of disbelief and rage: “ _Mom?_ ”

Rose’s back-steps increase but her son’s growth is faster and therefore so are his movements. He towers over the coastal cliff, erupts a skin-crawling and earth-rumbling roar, and as he turns his back to what Rose assumes was once his home, a clawed paw crashes down on her.

It would have _poofed_ her—

It _should_ have poofed her—

If she _could_ poof.

By the time Connie, Peridot, Bismuth, and Lapis Lazuli make it down to the beach, there is no remnants of Rose Quartz being there, just a deeper-than-normal crater in the beach sand where she had been stomped.

The blanket and trinkets are left in her place on the beach sand. She had wanted to take them with her but time would not allow it.

After it is all over, the crumpled photograph will be scavenged by Lapis Lazuli later that evening who will run wet fingers around its torn edges. She will stare at the chess piece quizzingly and criticize the ugliness of the blanket.

* * *

There is a moment, albeit brief, that Rose meets her son again after her “poofing.” Oddly still, it is in an incorporeal pocket void, one that feels entirely different from hers.

She’s in her original form, as a Diamond, and her son’s back is towards her, sitting cross-legged on an invisible floor.

There is no sky, sea, or earth. There is light but no more than the sunlight from behind closed eyelids.

She outstretches a hand, pulls it back on instinct, in fear. Tries again. Her words get stuck in her throat. She clears her throat then tries again; her voice small.

“Steven?”

The change in posture is immediate. Her ears ring with a scream she hadn’t spoken. Now hunched over his lap, Steven is mumbling to himself.

Pink tries again, calling his name.

His response is a shout for her to “Go away!”

She doesn’t get to finish her excuse that she doesn’t know how, that she doesn’t know where she is, that all she wants to do is help before he screams that she’s “ruined everything!”

“Everything is your fault!”

“You did this!”

“You made me this way! You couldn’t just handle everything yourself, keep it in your pants, and not burden everyone! So I wouldn’t have to fix everything of yours!”

“You turned me into this!”

“I’m a monster because of you!” Is the last one hollered at her, it losing its vigor and transforming into a wet whimper. “Why am I such a failure?”

There’s quiet in the void as Steven wraps his arms around himself and cries into his lap. Pink Diamond closes the distance between them and kneels at his side.

All of the self-deprecating emotions he has are the same she’s felt at some point during her life.

“Now Steven, I didn’t turn you into a monster,” she speaks calmly, breaking the silence and startling Steven into stop crying.

He had assumed she was a figment of his conscious and couldn’t respond without his willing.

And then her words register. And he grows angry.

“Yes, you did!” He yells again, ignoring his tears, still refusing to look at her face. “These— _the Gem powers_ —!”

“Okay then,” she goes, unconvinced. “What part of whatever I did pushed you into transforming? I haven’t seen you since you were a child, much younger actually. Tell me, Steven.”

Despite not having an answer, he doesn’t let that dispel his anger, still feeling the need to have someone to blame.

“Everything you feel...I have had the same thoughts too.” She looks off to the side, expecting to land on an object but bounces back when there isn’t anything. “I’m sorry that you have to feel this way too. If you would like, I can help—”

She outstretches a hand toward him again but he curls away. She ignores the sting felt.

“Don’t touch me,” he snaps, and she sorrowfully obeys.

She starts to speak again but he growls at her to stay quiet and to leave him alone.

“I can’t,” she comments about leaving, but he doesn't believe her, still convinced she’s a figment of his imagination.

Lowly, he asks himself, “Why can’t I get quiet, even in here?” Then he grabs his head in distress. “I must be going crazy—that’s it! I'm going stir-crazy! I—I’m losing my mind, I keep messing up things, and seeing stuff that isn't there—I’m imagining my mother _again!_ I—I—I can’t even think straight, and all I feel is—”

“Steven.”

He hollers loud enough to create a deep crater in the ground, had one been present.

Pink waits until he’s left with exhaustion after most of his anger decipates and offers to help.

Steven slams his hands over his ears. He doesn’t want to hear anything about ‘helping’ again, the word now has embarrassing memories attached to it. He begins to slightly rock back and forth, mumbling about wishing her away.

Seeing this, Pink Diamond breaks his hopes. “I’m not a part of your conscious, Steven.”

Of course this shakes him, looking at her for the first time. She sees his eyes are washed out, the brown of his irises faint and nearly blending in the whites of his eyes. It startles her, to say the least.

It takes minutes for it to sink in, and then more for him to believe it. “But... _how—?_ ”

“Beats me,” she shrugs. Tries a grin. “Did I use that phrase right?”

He hesitates to nod.

She’s unable to hold his gaze further, frowns. “And, it’s rather difficult to be a _failure_. But I am here if you need me—for the time being. And I _am_ truly sorry that I have caused you so much grief. I hope you know that was never my intention.”

A part of him had always thought so, but still there is a cynical part of him, a part that finds it easier to push the blame of his life and mistakes onto someone else.

“Like I said: I have felt similar,” she continues. “It’s scary isn’t it? Having the realization that everything you’ve done...how impactful it can be. That everything is because of _you_ and not _someone else_.”

He nods again. Voice small and breaking, he asks, “How did you possibly know that?”

“I’m a few thousand years old, Steven. I think I’ve gained _some_ wisdom over the years.” Her attempt at lightening the tension doesn’t work so she sighs. “It was similar to how I felt when I first came to Earth and after relinquishing my authority as a Diamond, because, then I couldn’t blame anyone for my mistakes, much less expect the other Diamonds to fix things.”

At this, he looks off to the side, nearly rolling his eyes.

With the broken eye contact, Pink Diamond is able to look at him again. “Everything I did, who I impacted or helped, it was me and my choices alone. And...it _was_ a little scary at first. Did Pearl ever tell you about the decade she thought I went missing? I had an... _incident_ kind of like yours right now and she was left with Garnet. When I was able to pull myself together, they were about to welcome Amethyst from her Kindergarden.”

All the while she’s talking, Steven stares off in front of himself as if he’s mentally somewhere else. But at the mention of Pearl, tears are falling down his face, unable to hold on to his barricade of anger anymore, letting the rest of his emotions flood through.

It feels different having her here.

Pink’s story dies. Steven inhales shakily.

“Why is it so hard?”

“That’s life, unfortunately. But you can always change.”

He sniffs, wipes at his nose. Voice still low and quivering, he points out, “You don’t even know what I’ve done.”

“Do I have to?”

The answer is nearly spoken, impulsively.

“Do _you_ think _you’re_ a good person?” A finger lifts his chin towards her. She stares at a point just above his ear instead of his white-washed-out eyes.

“I don’t know anymore.” Steven can’t meet her eyes.

“Well I know _for sure_ that _I_ am not.” It’s spoken so lightheartedly that _this_ is what makes Steven look to his mother, unexpecting her response. “Not completely. But I spent many, many years to become a better person.”

“I know,” he whispers, removing his chin from her fingertip. “The Gems are really old but we hum—I don’t—I’m not going to be living that long.”

Her eyes close for a moment. “What is your age now?”

“Sixteen. Going to be seventeen in three months.”

“And don’t humans live to be eighty? You still have a long time to go.”

“ _Female_ humans do, at least,” he corrects. “For us males, they usually live to about seventy-six years of age. But humans’ prime age ends in our twenties.”

“You’ve looked into this a lot,” she notes.

“I was younger...and living around immortal ladies while everyone else, including me, got older. Of course I was _a little_ curious...”

“And I will repeat: you still have a long time to go.” This time when she shares a grin, he doesn’t become angry. “Does it help that _I_ think you’re a good person?”

“But we never got to meet.” His posture slumps. A fresh bought of tears gather in his eyes at the returning survivor’s guilt.

“We _have_ , actually.” Because this too is spoken so surely and calmly, it catches Steven off guard. “Besides, you’re a part of me, after all. And if I became a better person, you can too.”

Her posture straightens and for the first time, Steven _understands_ what it means to be in the presence of a Diamond: under her penetrating, alien gaze, her grandiose and perfect posture, he sees the thousands of years of regality shining through.

He can’t stop himself but repeating, “Part of you...”

She isn’t as confident about those exact words anymore but puts on the appearance that she is, realizing _he_ needs to believe this more than she, right now. However, a small prickle of guilt grows in the back of her mind.

Cradling one of his cheeks in her hand, she forces his head to lean onto her side. He doesn’t push away.

After what feels like hours, he’s stopped crying and lifts his head from her side, remembering something she’s said earlier. “What did you mean by ‘here for the time being’?” But as he looks to his mother for a response and deprived guidance, she’s vanished from his side.

* * *

The origin of human motivation has, at times, been described as a mysterious, arbitrary longing of the soul. For those who feel a pull that is stronger than the other desires, that one is often named destiny; and if that destiny is sought after badly enough, it can be attained no matter how unimaginable it may seem. For this reason, it is helpful to remember that not everyone’s destiny is the same, and likewise, not everyone _defines_ their destiny appropriately.

For Pink Diamond, she realized that Rose Quartz was her destiny—and by extension, liberation of planet Earth—and by extension, her evolution into a better being, to _procreate_ was her destiny.

Like many humans, she too slightly misinterpreted her destiny, it overcast by her other varying deep desires.

Meaning, like many human parents, she saw procreating as the ultimate way to absolve her flaws and history.

While being Rose Quartz, she heard of humans spinning stories about an _afterlife_ and she was informed about their theories. She hoped to one day have her offspring indulge in these many choices and possibilities. She didn’t want to be here anymore, yes, partially, but if she could transfer half of her being—as it happens—into one who had more freedom and ability to not remain rigid, it was too promising to pass up.

She just never knew how _detrimental_ doing something like this is. She knew only the surface concept of gemstones, life-force, and time. She thought that giving up her physical force would put an end to her altogether, never realizing that life—and time—run in a circle, dancing between life and death, and even beyond that.

She’s the first Gem to know this, despite after she’s giving up her physical form. What she didn’t foresee was how far her hope for the future will actually reach back in time.

* * *

It’s two years after the incident where Steven’s emotions get the best of him and he grows twice the size of his home, transforming into a physical manifestation of his self-image.

He’s older now and has returned to his beach-side house after a half-year-long road trip with constant contact. He hadn’t gone far, only four states away before his family retrieved him from the back of his pink lion following how he’s “getting bad again.”

He’s taking up a futon bed in the greenhouse on the topmost floor. It’s been cleared out now, neither the Gems nor his father possessing thumbs green enough to sustain them.

It’s sometime after he’s laid up in his bedroom for days, making minimal social contact, and staring sadly in the reflective glass at the permanent scars left over from his gargantuan transformation, from wounds during travels, from imprudent actions. It’s five months after he’d taken a pair of scissors to his hair and hacked off an uneven halo of his out-grown curls before going to a barber’s to clean it into an undercut. It’s been four months since the two-year anniversary with his therapist and since he’s stopped having nightmares that awoke him in cold sweats.

Steven is nineteen now and is participating in the bi-annual spring cleaning—because Pearl _insists_ and not fighting against the excuse that having an assignment will do him good mentally and physically, no matter how much he rolls his eyes and reiterates that he’s comfortable holing up in his bedroom. He’s gotten a small local job in town. He’s returned to his botany hobby after replenishing his collection and seeds. There’s a contact in his cellphone which he’s deleted but the history in the messaging app remains, serving as a reminder to not call or text back.

Steven doesn’t think about his mother often, nowhere near as much as when he was a child.

Which is ironic because, for the second month in a row, he greets the mailwoman for the umpteenth time as he waits beside his mailbox on the beach and is handed an envelope addressed to him. Or, what Steven _assumes_ is for him, as it’s written in Gem Glyph. Tucking the rest of the mail under an arm, Steven tears open the envelope—it’s another handwritten one, done partially in pencil and partially in blue ink. He picks up a symbol here and there from brief lessons with Sapphire and Peridot over the years but he isn’t able to decipher it in full, and debates whether to bring it to one of the Gems...until reading the small drawing of a rose beside a diamond shape at the end of the letter, like a signature. Both are drawn in red marker. Steven’s grip on the paper tightens, wrinkling it, and has to close his eyes, take a deep breath before folding it and inserting it back in its envelope. Shuffles it to the bottom of the pile of mail.

He’d gone barefoot outside so he cleans his soles on the doormat before entering. Sand still tracks inside and Pearl scolds him about it from the warp-pad across the house.

He goes through the mail while leaning against the kitchen counter. Tucks a hanging curl behind an ear while skimming through food coupons, a spam letter attempting to sell a credit card. Another about car insurance for the Dondai. A flyer from Mayor Nanefua. A reminder for his upcoming cell phone bill. After going through the stack, the only one left is the handwritten address on an envelope. Arms folded under his chest, he stares with dissatisfaction at the Glyphs on the envelope’s front. Looks to the trash can beside the counter, the opened spam mail on top of the pile. Looks back to the Glyph envelope.

This isn’t the first time he’s received letters like these—they have happened periodically in the past, most he happened to find among the spam mail in the trash can, but he was much younger and didn’t question it much nor went dumpster diving. These last few months are the first the letters arrive continuously and he’s able to investigate himself.

Steven sighs, folding theenvelopes again to shove it in his back pocket. He will ask about it when he has the energy to interact with more than three people.

He returns to spring cleaning: carrying cardboard boxes of long-unused decorations from the makeshift greenhouse to his home’s lower level when he comes upon a closet door, he doesn’t remember ever being there prior. After setting down the large box, Steven successfully jiggles the door open after applying extra strength and a shoulder to the wood. Inside, it’s narrow and smaller than the rest of their closets; a wool mop adorned with cobwebs leans against one wall. Along the opposite wall sits a medium-sized opened cardboard box containing more handwritten letters—some of them in English, a few in Gem Glyph, Steven discovers upon investigation. Inside is also a necklace with an aged, carved golden pendant, a pair of binoculars which he leaves on the floor beside it, and ticket stubs to a rock concert from over twenty years ago.

Steven quickly tears open a sealed envelope written in English and skims its contents, and is _stunned_ to find it is signed with the same two drawn pictures of a rose and a diamond shape, this time drawn in pencil.

He opens another one, darts straight to the bottom of the letter. There, as plain as day are identical symbols, albeit shaky as if drawn while in a moving vehicle.

He opens a third. A fourth. A fifth. All have the same. Even the Gem Glyph ones.

Unable to ignore it further, Steven grabs Amethyst’s arm, as she’d been passing by. With rising anxiety, Steven questions about the closet and why hadn’t he ever noticed it before, if it was built while he’d been out.

His sister shrugs. “Must have been _magic_ ,” she jokes, trying dispel his worry.

“I’m _serious_ , Am! I really don’t ever remember it being here. I found a box of letters in here—”

“Maybe you’re overthinking it, bro. People forget stuff all the time. And, judging by that mop over there, this stuff’s _way old_.”

“I’m pretty sure it _wasn’t_ here before,” he whispers to himself, unconvinced.

He turns over the letter in his hand, one yet unread and written in English he’d pulled from the box. This one is written in pencil and fades in certain areas, the lines spotted with what are clearly tear stains. Amethyst chooses that time to look over his shoulder, being nosey.

Skimming its contents, one line jumps out at him:

> _I am eternally sorry for what they did to you. I never wanted you to meet White Diamond. Never would I have imagined she would succeed in extracting your gem._

Amethyst’s eyes widen.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I did a few twists on Steven's transformation, as you can see. I don't think his change was instant like it was hinted at. The idea of it being a gradual change where you see every detail was intriguing (like The Fly, which is what I had in mind while writing that)_


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am re-posting this (new) chapter because I felt that one of the interactions was not in character enough and some foreshadowing was not explicitly stated. I hope this is to everyone's liking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I fell into a depression period so I had to take a break. I am still going through it but I am interested in this story if you are._
> 
> _1\. this chapter is extra long to make up for the time I have been away_
> 
> _2\. during my time away I edited the plans for this story to make sure things fit together. I think it is and in this chapter a lot of hints are dropped towards later chapters_
> 
> _3\. this chapter is stuffed full of foreshadowing hints and headcanons, including those for things left unanswered and the extended future. Can you find them all?_
> 
> _4\. I hope you enjoy, etc_
> 
> xoxo

For Pink Diamond, time does not appear to pass abnormally. In fact, it feels as if no time skips have happened at all. Through her perspective, her last location and interaction is in a mysterious, blank void alongside her teenaged son’s mental figure of himself, eyes bleached white and having teetered over the edge of a mental breakdown that was hauntingly familiar to her own, years prior. Being beside her son felt to have just been moments ago: she’d looked into his eyes, felt the warmth of his cheek on her arm, felt his tears on her fingertips...and then in the next following seconds, she’s yanked from him once more in the blinks of an eye and she’s now tumbling downwards through time, falling forward to an unknown destination as smeared colors and light forming her new surroundings.

She realizes she’s being pulled from him again all too late—right when she had _just_ had him in her arms for the second time. She doesn’t monitor the volume of her scream of frustration and destress. And for a fraction of a second, she thinks her travel spacetime void _cracks_. She feels for her gemstone, her fingers falling into the concaved space instead; feels its smoothed edges, the perfect inward point of her diamond’s shape.

“Take me back!” She screams, shaking her fists, swinging them to pound on the ground but doesn’t meet a connection. Her body spins in space instead. “Make this end! Let me out!”

Pink Diamond presses her face into the gloved palms of her hands, hollers to whatever soul may be listening. “Why can’t you leave me alone? Let me be!” The depression over herself and not wanting to be a burden onto others returns full-force. “Just let me die already!” is punctuated by a sob. “Just let me end…!”

She had made peace with her death, readying for herself to be reborn, made anew. She had prepared everyone for it, and since this mysterious traveling began, she’s been presented with more questions than answers. She shouts this, screams for an answer.

But of course she isn’t answered.

Instead, she continues traveling, overcome by the sensation of falling.

This time when she lands—when what she _thinks_ is her landing—she’s welcomed by a bright-pink flashing, pulsing, its color identical to the lightning when hearing Spinel from within the diamond-shaped mirror enclosure, but her feet never touch solid ground. This time, she becomes surrounded by that light, it becoming her world on all sides, and then—

And then she gets the same _fear_ as being back in the Diamond palace. She sees _White Diamond_ , immensely menacing and four times as large then she remembers. Her gigantic, talon hand outreaching for Pink and her fear transforms to _terror_. Suspended in the air and helpless, she sees Blue and Yellow Diamond flanking White’s sides, clearly underneath their superior’s mind control, and her emotions transform to _mortification_.

It takes Pink Diamond more time than it should have to realize that White’s fingers are slowly reaching for her _gemstone_ —or, what makes it apparent is Pink’s _own scream_ that’s lost to her ears at the searing pain of White’s nails miscalculating and missing her intended target, and instead _raking_ her long black nails down Pink’s stomach before reaching her hollowed naval.

Fuchsia light, just like what surrounds her, beams through the long cracks left by White Diamond’s fingernails, like illuminated deep fault lines and she’s briefly disoriented by bone-deep panic and confusion of the situation.

Gasping, Pink Diamond is pulled back to her reality by the blood-curdling scene watching White Diamond’s fingernails stop at her naval—latching on to where her gemstone _would be_ , then begins pulling at the air as if her gemstone is _still there_ , the pain matching and her body acting accordingly by her stomach bending forward.

Pink Diamond watches in agony and through tears as her stomach is pulled forward as if her gemstone was truly being extracted, the light brightening from the cracks in her body, and she becomes lost to excruciating agony that rivals childbirth. She doesn’t register the bone-chilling scream she releases when the illusion of her gemstone is finally removed, White pulling it from thin air above her empty naval. She doesn’t realize that the scream isn’t originally _hers_.

Her world remains a blinding pink for minutes more. She’s too drained and in shock to move, her body and hovering as if she’s in White’s other hand. But that doesn’t quite matter, she thinks—because she’s suddenly forced to _shape-shift_ into her first Diamond form, not her current and that prior to her being poofed by White centuries ago. hen without warning, into her Rose Quartz form...and then it’s as if she’s extracted from her body altogether, her vision not being her own.

It’s _exactly_ as if she’s watching through someone else’s eyes who floats down to the pristine polished floors and stands in the middle of White Diamond’s throne room: someone short and smaller. Someone who is staring back at a pale-faced, sunken-eyed Steven, as a child, in the arms of the human girl from Pink’s own palace before. Someone who, when glancing down, has arms, hands, and matching clothing attire as Steven but is aglow.

Pink Diamond is forced to helplessly watch from the perspective of this pink-colored boy who watches his flesh doppelgänger struggle in the girl’s arms to inutility reach his hands to Pink Diamond’s perceived direction.

And she watches, like from a full-bodied screen, as the pink-colored boy turns to White Diamond and uses the inherited gift of sonic lungs to startle the sovereign Gem and _terminates_ White’s trance. Pink Diamond is unable to move or speak or think, lost in the scene as she seems to approach Steven, takes his dying body in her stocky, childish, glowing arms. She watches the pained, relieved smile her son grows once in her arms, and she feels the welling of sorrow surge in her chest but never feels the relief of tears.

She sees Steven break out in a laugh, lean forward to hug her, bury his face into her neck, and a warm, giddy emotion washes over her that’s like breathing air after being underwater, like the healing warmth after being in the arctic, like being lost and now found. The emotion isn’t _hers_ —she isn’t aware of this at first.

Pink Diamond can’t help but begin to _laugh_. Her son’s relief is infectious and it rings from the tip of her nose down to her curled toes. Pink laughs loudly from deep within her belly.

As the pink-colored boy begins to dance on his own, her bright pink surrounding starts to gradually fade until she’s once again in the void of time. Pink Diamond wraps arms around herself and continues to laugh, now more out of love and relief felt. The corners of her eyes finally grow moist and as her tears finally form and fall through time, they land in different points in her history as random raindrops or water droplets.

The joyous feeling fades as she leaves White Diamond’s throne room but its memory remains. She remembers thinking how, genetically, children contain fifty percent from each parent, and therefore, her son has a large percentage of herself. It’s _comforting_ to think that her percentage contains all the love she had for him transferred into his physical being.

She thinks about what she’d just witnessed and how her perspective was from an _identical Steven_ and is hit with the sobering comprehension that none of what she felt—the ache, the relief, the exuberance—none of it was actually _her own_. It was all his feelings for who he pertains was also himself.

What she had been given was a glimpse of his life through his eyes, not a personal experience of hers.

Heartbroken, she now wraps her arms around her shoulders. Pink Diamond’s laughter turns to despair, her crying not ending.

* * *

The first law of inertia—there are three—is “inertia of rest,” defined by: the inability of the body to change its state of rest _by itself_.

This law, also called Newton’s first law, postulates in physics that, if a body is at rest or is moving at a constant speed in a specific direction, it will remain at rest or in a straight line at a constant speed unless it is acted upon by an _outside_ force.

 _Rose (Pink Diamond) is trapped as a spectral being within time, unable to be in the tangible world after being “poofed,” unless an outside force intervenes. This, of course, she doesn’t yet know. But what she_ is _aware of is that an incorporeal being isn’t able to interact with the physical. At least, not for long._

Mass is an integral component of inertia, as it measures inertia’s amount.

All objects resist changes in their state of motion. All objects have this tendency—they have inertia. But do some objects have more of a tendency to resist change than others? Absolutely; yes. The tendency of an object to resist changes in its state of motion varies with its mass. Mass is that quantity that is solely dependent upon the inertia of an object. The more inertia that an object has, the more mass that it has. The more massive an object has, the more that object resists changes in its state of motion.

 _As she inadvertently travels through time, Rose, or Pink Diamond, is starting to piece together that none of this may be just for_ her _but she will indulge in it as if it is until she understands it, and until she can find a way to control it._

* * *

“𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐰𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬.”

* * *

After finding an aged cardboard box of forgotten letters, Steven had been _convinced_ that the closet it’s found in had not been there prior. But when he questioned his sister, Amethyst, about it, she states that it was nothing more than something glossed over. This is likely and believable at first until he unfolds one letter at random and reads aloud a line written in faded pencil:

> _I am eternally sorry for what they did to you. I never wanted you to meet White Diamond. Never would I have imagined she would succeed in extracting your gem._

No longer a believable assumption, Steven stresses over this discovery for the rest of the day as he finishes his portion of spring cleaning. He’s momentarily pulled from his thoughts when Greg phones to alert that he’s going to be back in town soon. Steven’s aloof when Pearl questions if he’s eaten. He doesn’t hear Garnet’s reply that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Under a one-tract mind, Steven returns to the closet and thumbs the envelope pulled from his pocket as he stands in the doorway. There is no light switch. The closet is barely big enough to be called such and feels more like a crawl space but thinks that’s due more to his second growth spurt.

He teeters on the edge of investigating further or leaving the past where it ended.

This is due his last few years spent working to put the memories of his mother behind him and learning that he needn’t to continue her legacy or goals, and to instead live for himself. His later teenage years were spent actively trying to _forget_ that conjuring of her, dreamed, and through Gem recordings, and to separate himself from her reputation—and suspects he’s _nearly successful..._ until now.

The suppressed memory resurfaces about talking to her when he’d gone out of his mind and dissociates as his body transformed and grew grotesque, feeling more alien than his blood percentage. The memory feels as a dream and thus files it as such; he’d _spoken_ with his _dead mother_ in her Pink Diamond form so _of course_ it’s anything but a dream. She’d lent comfort, words of wisdom, and ease of mind but it didn’t dispel his complicated emotions about her.

But the “dream” had felt _so real_ and it left him staring at the ceiling for nights and days after, forced to aimlessly wonder the house when the Gems left. When he was brought back to reality and transformed back to normal that day, Steven admittedly been a bit distraught; all his hair was gone, his body newly scarred both inside and out, and he couldn’t stand or coordinate properly for weeks—human bodies aren’t meant to be altered, after all. It all motivates him to erase the “dream” and event from memory—any negative thoughts are to be banished, dwelling on them only made him stressed. Believing that negativity will not help his mental recovery, much less a subject that’s one of the sources of his troubles, no matter how much he didn’t want her to be, from teenaged to now Steven forgets about it, only briefly digging them back out during therapeutic sessions.

Now nineteen, he retrieves three letters from the worn cardboard box at random before closing the door back. He spends that night and the following day staring at the letters on his months-long temporary bedroom in the old makeshift greenhouse. The three randomly chosen letters happen to all be written in Gem Glyph and he partially laments about them.

_There’s no way I can read these!_

He’s pulled from his thoughts by the doorbell. It’s a package in need of a signature, he’s told by the chipper mailman. Judging by his temporary stupor over Steven’s height, Steven concludes that he must be new.

The new mailman shares that he was informed that all mail with “weird hieroglyphics” were to be given to the Universe residence, and hands a sealed envelope after the package is signed for.

Steven’s gratitude is lost in his shock and closes the door on him without looking up from the envelope. The rest of his family is out so he’s left alone with his thoughts for the day. It isn’t good, and he knows this. Whether he will admit it, aloud or even to himself, is another topic.

It took years working over self-loathing and attempting to cope with violent childhood trauma. The three years since receiving professional help isn’t enough; Steven is to be twenty years old in a few months. He’s working to save money for himself, not wanting to rely on his father completely. And just when he thinks he’s getting over the past, it returns…like it always does. Only this time it isn’t in the form of an angered or vengeful Gem or a result from the Diamond Authority.

Steven collapses on the living room couch and shuffles through the mail. His lips are tight as he goes through the stack of bill notices and spam. He reads the words but doesn’t comprehend much, his gaze occasionally flickering over to the Glyph envelope pushed near the coffee table’s corner. There’s a postcard from Sadie and Shep. Letters from other Gems who started living away from Beach City. Mail for the Little Homeschool. Coupons for supplies and groceries. The package that’s a paperback book he ordered online. Love letters between Sapphire and Ruby to each other, inspired from a romance film. A bill notice about Greg’s storage unit—

The storage unit! There are years’ worth of memorabilia in there!

Steven jumps to his feet, dashes to his new bedroom, throws on a pair of jeans and a red flannel shirt stored in cheaply-bought dressers. He forgets the letters on the coffee table, remembers when he’s down the stairs, remembers the Gems will be gone all day and assumes the letters will be fine.

It’s a tense drive to the storage unit that feels longer than it truly is. After paying the monthly fee via his father’s checking account, Steven readies himself to scour the overflowing unit.

He becomes too indulged in his goal that he doesn’t realize two hours have come and gone until his concentration is broken by his cellphone ringing in his pocket. It becomes a missed call from Amethyst and files away calling her back as a task to complete later. Before he slides it back into his pocket, his father’s contact appears on screen. Steven drops the lawn flamingo and a thirty-eight-gallon storage bin to answer.

“Hey, rockstar! How are things going?”

“Fine. Fine...” He lies, glancing at the mess of removed items.

“That’s great. Hey, I was just thinking about how you—”

“Listen, dad?” He slowly inhales. “I was wondering...had mom ever written any letters? Would it be something you would have kept in your storage? Or if she kept records of anything...like—”

“I don’t know.” His father’s voice is gruff as if recently awakening from a nap. “Your mom was keen on holding on to happy memories—and she had _a lot_ of memorabilia. She didn’t believe in getting rid of something that brought her joy. She kept most of her things in her gem, from what I remember.”

Without thinking, Steven’s gaze bounces down to the small protrusion of his gemstone poking from beneath his black shirt. He pulls closed his flannel to cover it. “What about letters... Did she write any? Did you keep any?” He looks back at the cluttered unit.

Grey clouds are approaching from the distance. Steven’s fingers fidget at his side.

“Not that I can recall,” Greg answers. But then again, he doesn’t always have the best memory.

“Okay. Thanks.” Steven lowers his cellphone, readying to end the call but hears his father continue speaking.

Greg asks about the storage unit; he received an email notification about the monthly fee and then a receipt, Steven confirms he just paid it off. Promptly thanking his son, Greg tells that he will inform Sadie and her bandmates that Steven said “hi” before hanging up. And then Steven is left with empty leads once more.

Steven’s motivation to search the storage unit (hoping to find something his father forgot) lasts for another hour before he gives up and repacks the unit, smelling oncoming rain in the air. He’s considering visiting Peridot to get a translation for the letters when his phone buzzes again at Greg calling back.

“Hey, schtu-ball. I just remembered: there would occasionally be envelopes sent to the Gem’s house or Vidalia’s as you were growing up.”

Steven freezes.

“They never had a sender and since you were a kid at the time, we just assumed it was some scammer who somehow got a hold of your name and address. So me and Vidalia always threw them away and handled it.” He pauses, the details reconnecting. “Those letters haven’t started again, have they? It’s been years and I called the—”

“No, everything’s fine.” Steven flinches at the lie, slapping his palm to his face. “I have to go,” he sighs, feeling mixed feelings from the relief from seeing the approaching golf cart in the distance. “A U-Stor employee is talking. Call you later,” Steven spills, hurriedly pressing _End Call_.

He stands in the springtime heat as the sky slowly darkens. He isn’t _upset_ but he is deeply unsettled. If these letters have been addressed to his home for years, including the ones written in Gem Glyph, his immediate assumption is that it is an unhappy Gem alerting him of her soon invasion. Steven grabs at his gemstone, feeling the hardened, calloused skin where organic material transforms into rock; sometimes when he’s especially distressed, he can feel its scarred edges from when it was removed from his body. Luckily, he hasn’t gotten to the point of being distressed.

However, the flower and diamond signatures are _peculiar_. As he strolls to the U-Stor entrance his brain racks around the possibility of there being any _more_ Diamond Gems somewhere else in the galaxy and is reluctantly considering to visit White Diamond to question this when he’s intercepted by the U-Stor employee on a golf cart. He’s needed at the front office; there, an employee behind a desk hands him a rubber band wrapped around a bundle of sealed envelopes.

“These were just dropped off. We assume they were mailed to us by accident. Might want to tell the sender your address as soon as possible. We aren’t authorized to keep mail not for us.”

Steven stares at the letters a little too long before relieving the employee of them.

* * *

Greg is reviewing the events in his phone’s calendar while in a traffic stand-still when he receives a call from Vidalia. He can hear the fatigue in her voice through her greeting—and a part of him empathizes with her and another part sympathizes, being a parent himself.

“Hiii~ Mister Big Manager. My best friend in the world. The greatest guy ever.”

“Whatcha need, Val?” Greg rolls his eyes but grins all the same at her buttery compliments.

“You’re almost here, right? I need a favor.” There’s a clang in the background, her voice having a slight echo and he assumes she’s in her garage. She’s actually in her kitchen.

“Can you pick up Sour Cream’s cake for me and a few things from the grocery store for the party? My hands are full still. At the house with Amethyst and Onion getting the last of everything ready for his party.”

Greg nods then remembers she can’t see his actions.

“There isn’t traffic so you’ll come in time, right? We want to give him a surprise.”

Greg assures that he will be, approaching the accident that caused the stand-still and then he will be two hours away from Beach City.

Vidalia’s voice is temporarily muffled as she presses it to her shoulder. There’s silence that responses which Greg identifies as her communicating with her youngest son. Onion is asking if Steven will be attending, Vidalia verbally repeats; Greg can’t make out Amethyst’s answer, which he overhears as if in response, but Greg provides one of his own.

“Steven should be coming. I mean, I don’t see why he wouldn’t. I just got off the phone with him.”

“Oh? And how’s he doing? We haven’t seen him in some time.”

Her back is turned so she doesn’t see Amethyst look up from the streamers in her hands at the mention of Steven visiting, but Onion does—and he pauses on his own accord, reading the quiet alarm in her haunted stare. He raises a hand, readying to sign a question but Amethyst then blinks, the stare disappearing and she busies herself with the decorations again but he can tell that she’s distracted.

“I need to ask you a question, Val. I think I need advice.”

The silent observer, Onion watches Amethyst’s hands move but her eyes are focused elsewhere while eavesdropping on his mother’s lax reply to her longtime friend: “Sure, dude. Lay it on me. Tell Val the Guru your troubles.”

“Ha ha. But really; this is serious.”

She smoothly glances over at her son whom she thinks is focused on his task. “How so?”

“It’s about Steven.”

“Care to elaborate a little more?”

He inhales and starts slowly. “He was asking about his mother, Rose. ...And he asked about those letters that used to be sent to him when he was a child. I don’t know how but I think they’ve started returning. Why else would it interest him?”

“But that shouldn’t be possible, right? I thought you talked to the post office or whoever and got it straightened out. What’s the question here?”

“It didn’t hit me until after I got off the phone with him and... I think I may have messed up.” His voice raises an octaval.

Hushed, she inquires, “Do you need to pull over and rest?” She cradles the phone to her mouth and drifts to the kitchen.

“There’s something I never told any of the Crystal Gems or anyone else. Mostly because I didn’t quite _believe_ it really happened.” He pauses. The sounds of the car and the radio on low volume trickles to her ear; Vidalia presumes that he has her on speaker phone. “Back when he was a teen—when that, um, _rampage_ incident happened, I found some things left on the beach that I _know_ couldn’t have been from anyone: that chess piece and those photos and Rose’s favorite blanket. The ones left in that container on the beach.”

“Wait, _why_ did you leave those on the beach? I thought those were, like, _sacred_ to you.” She rests an elbow in her palm.

“Doesn’t matter,” he quickly goes and Vidalia purses her lips.

“Well if it was on the beach,” she speaks slowly so his mind doesn’t stray. “Did it occur to you that probably a few _beach-goers_ found it and was coming to bring it to you?”

Greg thinks. The sounds of the engine fill her left ear for the duration of a full minute.

“You really think it’s something as simple as _beach-goers?_ ”

“Yeah, if you never told anyone else about _strangely_ leaving a container _on the beach_...” She glances back into the living room and Amethyst has disappeared.

Greg is silent again.

“Hey. You still there?”

“Yeah.” He pauses. “Just thinking.”

“You sure you don’t need a break?” Having known each other for years and seeing him at his worst, Vidalia has grown capable of picking up on Greg’s telltales, including when he is returning to grief.

“What if I told you that I left it there because...because Rose _told_ me to?”

At that moment, Onion sneaks a look from the corner of his eye to catch his mother’s muscles tense.

“You mean you had a dream.”

“I—not exactly.” Then, as if backtracking, he corrects, “No. It wasn’t a dream. It happened! I felt her, I talked with her, she definitely wasn’t a projection of anything like that! I don’t know how or why... She’s the one who warned me to visit that day. I—”

“Is this something you’re comfortable with talking over the phone? You’re usually more hesitant on discussing over the phone because _the government_.” Her slight smirk slips into her words wishing to elevate the mood. It’s an inkling of a tease hinting back when he was a little bit of a conspiracy theorist in his younger years. For the current conversation, Vidalia plays on that. “But in all truthfulness, I think you need to take a breath and step back. Think about all this. For one: people can’t come back from the dead, Greg.”

“But she wasn’t a people.” He’s quick to defend. “I mean she _was_ , but—but you know what I mean!”

“Okay. Let’s say with a shred of possibility, when has any Gem come back from the dead?”

“All the time, apparently.”

“Was it _death_ or suspended in time?” She means the state that “bubbling” them creates.

“Um, oh...” She can visualize the decrease of his rising hysteria. “The, uh, the second one.”

Vidalia nods. From the living room, Onion leans back trying to see around the corner, still eavesdropping.

“You should focus on the road. Maybe we can discuss this when you get here and after Sour Cream’s party.”

Over the phone, he obeys.

“Now,” Vidalia cheers back up. “Don’t forget to get the things for the party, alright?”

But Greg doesn’t remember so she reminds him.

Later when Vidalia returns and Amethyst steps outside to meet a Gem, Onion’s palms flips and turns and a finger extends.

“What was that earlier? What happened?” he signs with his hands to his mother.

“Nothing. Just deja vu,” she signs back.

* * *

When Pink Diamond is able to make out clear objects and locations through the streaking, blurred colors around her, she knows she’s going to land again. Wiping her eyes but not fully drying them, she successfully prepares herself for the ground rushing up and the sudden feeling of solid ground.

What she isn’t prepared for is to find herself _back_ on Homeworld. More precisely, she’s ill-prepared to be back inside one of _Blue Diamond’s_ rooms.

She isn’t immediately able to scramble to her feet because she’s floating hundreds of feet in the air. Gripping the baby-blue cloud, she takes a rapid glance around to find she’s floating parallel from Steven—whom she assumes is the adult man softly snoring, head thrown against the back of the cloud—then she meets the spooked gawking of Blue Diamond herself.

The shared moments of silence are _excruciating_. Pink watches the gears turn behind Blue’s eyes. The gargantuan female isn’t able to form _complete sentences_ as she stammers, struck dumb. But as expected, her emotions start to speak for her through welling eyes. Her sudden change in emotion startles the other Gems within her room, previously under her calming trance now look over at their queen in confusion.

Blue leans closer to the sixteen-foot Diamond in disbelief. From her perspective, Pink Diamond is a cinema projection from Steven’s gemstone peaking from beneath his shirt, but to Pink herself, she’s as solid as can be, not seeing the projected light rays although her hands are a tad transparent.

“Pink!? But—how—I—we thought—” Blue Diamond looks over at a still-sleeping adult Steven.

She watches as Blue’s hand raises, her mind processing in slow motion. Blue waves her hand and it _passes through_ Pink like a true light projection.

“This has to be...a memory? A hologram?” she thinks aloud, voice trembling. “You’re so life-like... And looks _exactly_ like her...”

Pink Diamond is struck silent. The only thing she thinks is “I shouldn’t be here” and “I didn’t ever want to come back.”

For Blue, she still holds on to the grief of her lost family member. Because a Gem’s lifespan is vastly different than a human’s, a Gem who has lived through several millennia will not mentally process the same: with human years passing by in a blink for a Gem, it takes them _longer_ to _truly_ get over lost, and despite having a new pink Diamond—her nephew, she remembers Steven explaining it to her—Blue Diamond still vividly remembers the smallest Diamond queen.

So, as Blue Diamond is both perplexed and ponders over the creation of this projection while rueful over this vivid memory of Pink Diamond, Pink herself frowns which turns into a _grimace_ as Blue’s yearning continues. When Blue urgently calls for Yellow Diamond to hurry, Pink can hold off no longer, breaking the dam of her silence by muttering, more to herself, “This isn’t right.”

Upon Blue’s confusion and coax, she mumbles further. “I... Why was I brought _here?_ I never wanted to see this place again; I had made peace with that! Wha—why—?” Her stare transforms into blank, then betrayed.

Blue looks from Steven’s shining gem to the projection of the other Diamond. “What are you getting at?” She wants to believe that she is talking to somewhat a version of Pink, so she starts to talk to the projection as if it is truly her. After all, Gems’ being comes from their gemstones; they _are_ their gems. “White said that you were always somewhere in there and I had started to lose hope, but,” she smiles. “But this is a pleasant alternative too. She always said that you had no choice but to come back to us.”

Pink stares, stomach knotted in a twist with bile and perturbation. She wonders if she’s brought here not for a homecoming but as a punishment. Everything has felt like a punishment so far.

Still staring off at an unfocused point, she floats back to the present as the thoughts steer themselves to her mouth. “Why was I was returned here?” There has to be a reason, she ponders.

(There is a reason: it isn’t for herself.)

(It isn’t for the Diamonds either.)

“Because you’re one of us, of course. Oh, how I missed—”

“This was the last place I ever needed to return to.”

“What? Now _Pink_ ,” and the scolding tone returns, slicing through Pink and attempting to shush her like all the centuries spent in the palace. It’s sympathetic but demeaning all the same, and she can feel Blue attempting to use her powers on her. “Why in the heavens would you say such a thing?”

She doesn’t falls for it, fighting against Blue's power. She’s saddened more than she’s offended.

“Do you not miss us? You’re a _Diamond;_ you belonged with us. And now you have come back...somewhat.”

Like the Diamond before them, oftentimes, Blue does not truly comprehend the reason behind unorthodoxed behavior of other Gems, but she’s gotten into the habit of nodding and saying she does all the same. For the time being.

“I thought so too but...over time I became unhappy. I saw a new way to appreciate and desire things rather than to rule over them.”

“You’re thinking like an organic.” It’s spoken more as an offense than observation.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“We don’t live like them or—why am I explaining this to a projection!?”

Her focus returns to the sleeping hybrid and his gleaming stone. Blue outstretches her hand to awake him, muttering about having a _discussion_ about tricks using his gemstone but Pink intercepts, arms outstretched and her voice finding some strength.

“I’m _not_ a projection! I’m right here!”

Blue denies, and believes herself foolish to think otherwise. If it truly was her comrade, than their relationship history would have prevailed and will help—

“We no longer _have_ a relationship, Blue.”

The saddened reminder stings.

Pink doesn't mean it in the way it's taken, but the statement echoes around the Blue room. For several heartbeats, Blue is overcome by shock...and then she scoffs, offended. Then her upper lip pulls back with offense.

“Of course we do! Even after your runaround as a Quartz—why wouldn’t we have one?”

“You still don't get that I ran _away_ from you; that everything I did was to get away from the Authority and preserve what you all were intent to _destroy!_ You _must_ have figured it out by now.”

Blue stops. She likes to think that she knows this even if she does not agree with it. That Pink appearing as a strikingly realistic film projection still shocks her.

“Leave Steven out of this,” she begs. “Do not throw him into the tower near White’s—the one you used used to leave me in for years.”

Blue hesitates, still believing she’s right. “That was for your own good.” She pauses. “I _thought_ it was for your own good...”

Pink shakes her head. “It was bad for me; it will be horrible for him. He would not survive.”

“We are aware.” Blue lowers her chin. “We found out.”

The statement clicks something within Pink Diamond. “You found out?” Then her stomach begins to fill with dread. “You have done it before, already, haven’t you?”

The other’s silence speaks volumes, admitting what she verbally will not.

But Pink, it sets her off like a closely lit kerosene-soaked wick to a stick of dynamite. She’s appalled, to say the least.

For mothers, many not only protect their children but know that a percentage of their burden and trauma will be carried on the backs of their children. So, it is not unheard of for that mother to do whatever she feels is right way, in that present moment of decision, to protect her children in the future. Such examples include following directions for the future to not re-meet the past—like Vidalia—or to threaten with tone and chastise with words about endangering her child—like Pink Diamond scolds to Blue Diamond.

The confrontation makes Blue’s body freeze, to watch the shorter Gem show emotions over an organic Blue knows she can never muster and display a motherly instinct she will never understand. What also throws her for a loop is after the fact is pounded into her that Steven _doesn’t_ have Pink’s memories, he _said_ he doesn’t, and insisted that he’s entirely separate from her, then _how_ is this projection of character speaking of events only Pink Diamond had experienced? The confusion shakes Blue deeply.

“Steve—Pink—I don’t understand—”

In all her years, Blue can admit that there were ways she treated the smallest Diamond that were callous, but she thought the good in her relationship with Pink overshadowed the bad.

“ _How_ could you think it would make any Gem feel? Especially when _you_ used to vent about what White did to you!”

“But Pink, we—I have changed—!”

“How?”

Pink steels her feet, towering over her son, and Blue sits back from her knees, enduring, though peppered between her words are bits of Earth jargon which Blue does not quite understand.

With being the one she was closest to, it felt like betrayal when she was reported to White all those years ago which started their rift. Pink doesn’t want to be here, she never needed closure, but still she wishes Blue had listened to her. If she had just _listened_ and _tried to consider_ —

Yellow Diamond enters the room. Pink turns to the other primary color. The Gems eavesdropping from clouds throughout the room shrink away, knowing better than to intervene or caught spying.

A messenger had been sent to retrieve Yellow and relayed Blue’s discovery. She shrugs it off as an exaggeration until seeing Pink projected before her. The giant Diamond looks to her other for an explanation but receives Blue’s heartfelt stare. Yellow can tell that she is falling back into grief like when she used to secretly order her pearl to shape-shift into their late Diamond.

 _This_ Pink, however, is defensive and does not resemble the Diamond they once knew those centuries ago, who was so eager to get her own colony. This one... This one is _different_ , and Yellow treats her as such. Not believing this is truly Pink Diamond, she berates Blue about falling for “this projection.”

“But she’s saying things _only Pink_ would know!” Blue wipes at a tear.

Yellow is beginning to consider this when Pink interrupts, continuing from Blue Diamond. "Is it true that you left Steven away in tower—abandoning him in the tower—in the same one that I was tossed in? Yellow, is that true?"

Yellow glances from Steven, still sleeping, to Pink’s furious stare. And that’s when Pink shares that, after this reveal, she can’t help but be hurt further by the Diamonds.

“Blue says she has managed to change. Have you?”

Yellow is a fool, a prat, a dunce for never believing the truth when the clues were right in front of her: whether it is about Pink Diamond’s rebellion as Rose Quartz, whether it is with Gems, at Yellow’s own selfishness harming others—servants, colonies, and other fellow-ranking Gems alike. And, about how Yellow harmed _her_.

While both Blue and Yellow echo White Diamond’s omnipotent behavior, Yellow has always been the favorite and it obviously displayed with how much she was encouraged to follow in White’s footsteps by their superior until Yellow began doing so by her own regard; it was shown in number of worlds Yellow aspired to colonize and destroy, her wish to mimic the largest Diamond’s success. Of course Yellow hadn’t _initially see fault_ in her past actions but a quick glance at her nephew—yes, _nephew_ , she remembers—she thinks of Earth’s previous fate and re-connects it all.

“But now you brought _my son_ into this...!”

“Your... _son—?_ ”

“Yes, _son!_ ”

“But Gems don’t—don’t _reproduce!_ ” Yellow barks a laugh of disbelief that masks her growing discomfort. “Most certainly not in that _ghastly, repulsive_ way that organics do it. He’s just some fusion she created that’s—that's... Blue,” she addresses. “What’s the meaning of this projection?” She bends down to the sleeping man. “What is Steven doing?”

Pink Diamond clenches her fists and roars that she’s “ _not a projection!_ ” Even in death, they disregard her.

Pink’s shout startles the audience of shorter Gems floating on the clouds far above, gently quakes the ground, causes a sharp, high-pitched ring that awakes Steven.

“It’s really me!” Pink beats her chest with both hands. “Why can’t you see that! I’m right here!”

“ _Steven_ ,” Yellow Diamond snaps, startling the man awake. “Stop this at once!”

He’s frightened—as any small being would be—then confused, and then _offended_ at the address, and then struck silent by Pink Diamond emitting from his gemstone.

“You never listened to me! You _still_ don’t listen to me!” Pink throws her head back. “ _Why_ am I here?!”

Blue stands to her feet as Yellow looms forward, pointing a gigantic finger at Steven. “Stop this at once or I will have to report this to _White_.” She glances at the projection of his mother in her true form. “Your _gem_ seems to remember what that entails.”

She’s referring to his mother’s sudden change of character and expression upon White Diamond’s mention: Yellow’s threat strikes Pink Diamond to clam up in routine fear, her muscles tensing and her rage iced. Her face pales in color. Being brought to White Diamond is the _last thing any Gem_ wishes. It spells exile. It spells death. Or worse: to become subject to cruel and inhumane experimentations. Pink thinks about how The Cluster within Earth was formed and placed. She thinks about the tales of how the Diamond Authority used to be made up of all primary colors. She thinks about the tales of what happened to the last primary colored Diamond. She thinks about how she’s, _technically_ , an off-color meant to replace Red Diamond.

The anguish in her eyes aren’t mirrored in the large hybrid male at her side. In fact, there’s hardly anything along what she feels written on his facial features—there’s a shock from her unexpected presence, of knowing, familiarity. Then his face softens, a hand running down his short-shaved goatee.

“No,” slips out Pink’s mouth, a tiny, near inaudible plea.

At the same time, Steven murmurs a set of numbers and a month.

Yellow Diamond turns back to Steven. “But since you aren’t _Pink Diamond_ —I mean, _our_ Pink—we’ll have to discuss something else to do with you—”

It all happens in a matter of seconds: the exchange of words, reiterating Yellow’s regulations. Steven—as a fully grown adult, _God_ , Pink is unable to look away for more reasons besides fear—denies Yellow with a familiarity from years that makes his mother worry.

This isn’t what she wanted for him, ever. She _never_ wanted him near Homeworld, or Yellow or Blue Diamond, much less White. And that he seems to have become _so familiar_ with them speaks volumes to her fears.

Steven sees her, _really sees her_ , and his face changes, hardens, then opens. He grabs at his gemstone in reflex. Glances between his gemstone to the projection of his mother acting on her own. His shoulders drop.

“Steven!”

He doesn’t tear his gaze away as his large mother begins to fade as the projection ends on its own. His hand raises to his broad chest as if clenching the fabric of his shirt would calm his heartrate.

“What was the meaning of that! Explain at once!”

Addressing Yellow Diamond without facing her, he answers, “That wasn’t me...”

“What do you mean _it wasn’t you?_ ”

“I didn’t know her gem could do that,” Blue muses.

“Neither did I.” Steven pulls his shirt down to cover his stomach, it having hiked up in his sleep. He runs fingers through his hair, stops at the hair tie, pulls out his long-outgrown curls and hurriedly reties them into a ponytail, gaze unfocused, mind running miles a second.

“Those things—accusations you accused us under, those were _uncalled for_.” Yellow is very offended. It is as if a band-aid had been pulled off of an old scabbed-over wound, it now reopened. “We take you in, work with you for _half_ of your waning, infinitesimal organic lifespan, accept your feeble organic rules and obligations, and—and we even talked White _down_ from shattering you _many times before_. I can’t _fathom_ what you spoke to Blue! And this is how you repay us? With taunts and treating us like inferior and reawakening the past?”

He looks up at the pantone-yellow giant incredulously.

She scoffs. “Don’t think that stunt you pulled when you were a larva _singlehandedly_ stopped her ambitions! She wanted to hunt you down and reabsorb you just like Red. Most of your gratitude should be towards _Blue_ , not to pull this stunt!”

His jaw hangs. “I should—? How come no one ever _told_ me this? This is something I should have been _informed years ago!_ ” He throws his arms out to his sides. “And who is _Red Diamond?_ There were _more_ of you?”

“Oh, don’t play coy. We’ve gone over this time before.”

“Uh, no, you _never_ did!”

“Well your _gem_ seems to have a rather _intact_ memory of the last few millennia. Why don’t you ask _her?_ ”

“I—!” He’s stunned dumb. He had come only to relax and temporarily get a break; to be ganged up on and accused of disrespecting the Diamonds is the _last thing_ on his to-do list, especially given that White Diamond has been gone for a decade to a small solar system she refused to give up as a colony.

Steven raises a thumb to chew at the nail. Seconds later, a light clicks on behind his eyes. _Why don’t you ask her?_

“And to call _me_ a dunce? That is _out of term!_ ”

He knows he has his mother’s gem, as well as the same eyes as his mother, the same curly hair that is currently tied up and brushing past his shoulders. And even though he knows it will fall as false onto the Diamonds’ ears, he still speaks his truth: “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do any of that. I don’t know _exactly how_ it happened but I have _no idea_ what Pink Diamond was talking about.”

“ _That_ wasn’t Pink Diamond—?”

The reserved Diamond places a hand on her comrade. “It’s okay, Yellow. I can speak for myself. Plus...I believe him.”

Yellow Diamond doesn’t.

In the end, Yellow hesitates but doesn’t act right away. She _does_ mention this incident to White Diamond in passing, later. And when her superior finally hears, despite being lightyears away at the time, White isn’t pleased by their newest Diamond’s alleged treachery and proceeds to appoint an appropriate punishment fit for an organic of his status.

* * *

_“Why don’t you ask her?” Yellow Diamond spat. Later, her advice will be acted upon, the new owner of the pink diamond taking it literally._

* * *

_Continuing from the U-Stor_

The car bounces with his weight as the nineteen-year-old Steven returns to his car, the vehicle weakly squeaking in protest. The top of his head is centimeters from the inside’s roof, flattening the top of his curls. He groans, it all routine since he was mid-eighteen-years-old and had to start squishing his thighs against the gear shift. The mental note to drive to Charm City to car shop again is mentally shoved to another day. He’s dropped into his lap the letters given from the U-Stor employee. Frowning, he inserts his keys in the ignition, rests a hand on the steering wheel, the other grabs the gear shift, then he stops. The memory of the car’s ringing ignition alarm still rattles in his skull alongside the burning curiosity about the letters. They are all addressed in English; no Gem Glyph. They are all addressed to him, specifically.

The ones from yesterday are left on the small table in the living room at his home.

Steven debates whether to open the ones here now or later. Rain begins to fall in a drizzle, slowly darkening the pavement. He turns the keys to the first position in the ignition switch and turns the windshield wipers on low but keeps the windows down midway. Fingers tapping the envelopes, he makes his decision, tearing open the first on the stack. Unfolding the paper inside—without lines this one has, as if written on white printing paper—his gaze going directly for the bottom and finds that same drawn signature.

His pulse speeds in reaction. There is some kind of secret kept about them, he feels. How else is it to be taken that he’s been receiving letters addressed to him _for years_ but were trashed without his say-so even when he became old enough to govern himself.

His gaze goes to the beginning of the letter in reflex.

> _He wants us both to leave today. I do not understand the trouble over our current location. There has already been so much time and money spent just for decorations. Sorry. Furniture for him. It’s almost like he wants to live with us now and I keep reminding him that he is welcome but he keeps returning to his van._

Steven squints. His pulse quickens.

> _I know Pearl and him still haven’t gotten along completely well. She thinks I don’t know but I can see right through her. It is all so exciting still. This is fun and the possibilities are intriguing. Even with my size. You were not a small baby, that is what your godmother thinks. She doesn’t believe me when I told her about the choices for your name._
> 
> _How is she doing now? She is away here. Gone to court she said._
> 
> _To answer your question this mailbox is worth more than I expected but I was told that it costs more to be installed on a beach. But I am glad it is here, unless I wouldn’t be able to_
> 
> _Wait Greg is taking it down_

Steven’s eyes are as wide as they are able to be. He drops the letter like it is hot coals. The bottom fold stays open so he’s still able to read the last line of the letter: “ _Much love!_ ” Followed by the two drawn symbols.

Something about it and the words read makes holding the envelopes feel _wrong_ , _unnatural_ , and Steven tosses them all into the passenger seat like his hands burn. Shakes his hands to calm the nerves. Starts the Dondai’s engine with shaking fingers. Mind reeling, he backs out of the parking space and nearly rear-ends another vehicle. He quickly shifts into drive. Pulls out onto the road with half of his mind distracted.

He’s continuously stealing glances at the letters strewn across the seat and the sandy carpeted floor.

 _What were those papers saying?_ _What the hell did they even mean?_ _How did they know about Pearl, or—!_

He slows, approaching a red traffic light, forcing his grip to loosen around the steering wheel. No, this is all just a silly little coincidence, he tells himself.

_It must be talking about some other woman named Pearl. There must be hundreds of others with that same name._

_And, Greg is a pretty common name._

_Who all have a mailbox on a beach..._

_And associated with someone who calls themselves things like a rose or a diamond—_

Steven flares into a bright, full-bodied pink glow. This alone causes him to fly into a panic.

He doesn’t notice the traffic light change to green—but he does hear the honking from the full-sized SUV behind him. His hands are shaking more as me pulls forward, matching the speed limit. He becomes acutely aware how the large SUV is tailgating him, following him through the next two traffic lights. At the next red light, Steven is glowing so bright it can be seen through the windows in the rain. And, due to the road slick with rain, the aggressive honk and tap against his rear bumper from the vehicle behind, his too-heavy foot paired with the wet asphalt create the perfect combination for his car to veer off the road, spinning in circles.

When the car comes to a stop in the right shoulder lane, he hurriedly puts it in park and throws himself out the door, falling to his hands and knees, gasping for air. His hands create permanent finger-shaped holes in the ground. The approach and leaving of vehicles along with his car’s ignition alarm keeps his mind grounded. His fingers relocating to dig into the dirt do the same for his body.

Steven hates himself for this, for his reaction, for his results. It feels like it’s years’ worth of progress gone out the window—

_The window._

Scrambling back to the car, he frantically searches for the letters but the passenger side is empty, as is the backseat. Steven’s stomach sinks, already knowing the result and hating himself for not winding up the window.

Strewn across the wet, busy asphalt are the envelops from the U-Stor. The envelopes are ruined, too wet to read or torn to shreds by speeding tires.

He sits in the driver’s seat with his feet on the wet ground for nearly thirty minutes in silence, watching vehicle after vehicle tear the papers to pieces, the traffic too busy to attempt saving them. He’s finally pulled from his thoughts by an incoming call.

Amethyst. _Of course_ , he thinks.

“Hey, we’re about to start! Where are you, dude?”

Steven hesitates. Swallows. “I—” He pauses to allow a semitruck to roar by.

“Sour Cream isn’t here yet. Vidalia says his plane was delayed. Since you’re still out, she wants to know if you mind giving him a ride?”

Steven remembers: Sour Cream’s welcome party that doubles as a surprise birthday.

“From the airport?” He blinks, fully coming back to reality.

“No, from the bottom of the ocean. _Duh._ ” There’s a loud slurping on her end followed by another pause as she fixes decorations. “Oh, and Onion wants to come too.”

“But I thought he was helping you all—”

“The little bugger slipped out not too long ago. He should not be too far from you. You’re still at U-Stor?”

He affirms so.

“He’s probably fifteen minutes away from you, then.”

Steven allows himself three more minutes to calm down before climbing behind the wheel again. But even through the drive to Charm City’s airport, back to Beach City, and as he sings happy birthday, he thinks about _godmother_ addressed in the letter and Vidalia. He debates whether to ask her about what she knows. He navigates about _when_ to ask Vidalia.

* * *

She swings between her Quartz and Diamond form after being ejected from Blue Diamond’s Palace on Homeworld where she was mistaken to be a _light projection_. Enraged by the encounter, she forms her hands into fists and allows a scream of rage inside her empty abyss.

If there is a starting point, some kind of epicenter that would stop her from being nonphysical and by extension, to cease this altogether, she’s now eager to find one.

Currently a mass of bright light and heat, she works to solidify into one form: her Diamond one, she ultimately decides, which may be the best choice in order to relax as she’s recently finished holding her Quartz form for pregnancy. At the decision, her body solidifies and she relaxes. And with it, unfortunately, comes the withheld fatigue.

Still not forgetting her suddenly altered reality, she raises a hand to her stomach. From her perspective, she’s just given birth hours or a few days ago. She feels it physically as well as mentally—she’s familiar of the extra body weight, the roundness of her belly, the occasional movement within her, the pain... And then to have it all vanish so abruptly… It’s an adjustment. It’s appalling.

She misses it—her baby, her family, her home, _her time_.

Pink Diamond loses her bearings, slides to her knees but since there isn’t a floor within spacetime, she floats freely. And before she knows it, her eyes have closed, falling into a slumber. Finally, she feels the familiar regeneration as if being inside her gemstone.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I hope there was not too many mistakes. still, I LOVE hearing your thoughts! :) so comments are very much appreciated. I'll try my best to reply and thank you for reading ❤_


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